Shared Awareness and Deconliction in the Mediterranean SHADE MED 2021

Sharing security, culture and values for a shared prosperity in the Med

Operation EUNAVFOR MED IRINI

Index PrefaceRear Admiral Fabio AgostiniIRINI’s Operation Commander

IntroductionMatteo BressanInternational Relations and Strategic Studies Adjunct Professor at LUMSA University and at Società Italiana per l’Organizzazione Internazionale (SIOI)

In and out of history: the geopolitical role of the Mediterranean in a changing international system Riccardo RedaelliDirector of the CRiSSMA, and Director of the MIMES, Catholic University of the S. Heart of Milano

EU-NATO cooperation in the Southern Flank Amb. Alessandro Minuto Rizzo President of the NATO Defense College Foundation

Libya’s main challenges: the local political scenario in an evolving regional context Alessia Melcangi TT Assistant Professor of Contemporary History of North Africa and the Middle East, Sapienza University of Rome; Non-resident Senior Fellow, Atlantic Council, Washington DC

Towards a strategic compass for the EUDaniel FiottSecurity and Defence Editor at the EU Institute for Security Studies (EUISS)

US policy on the Mediterranean and the role of PMCsAnna Borshchevskayahe Washington Institute for Near East Policy

Masks, vaccines, and investment promises – he geopolitics of China’s COVID-19 Health Diplomacy in the MENA region Moritz RudolfStiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, German Institute for International and Security Afairs

he New Mediterranean Great Game: geo-energy and geo-economic challenges in the basinMarco Piredda Head of Eni Political Scenarios and Institutional Support for Business Development MENA, Americas and Asia Paciic

Information in retreat, from peaceful and war zonesAnnamaria Esposito Foreign reporter and Head of service at Rainews24 – Rai Television

Current drivers of mixed movements along the land routes leading to the Western and Central Mediterranean routes Vincent CochetelSpecial Envoy for the Central & Western Mediterranean Situation

he EU Green Deal could trigger peace and clean development in the Mediterranean Arvea MarieniBrainscapital Srl Società Beneit partner and board member and Director of the Energy Transition Programme of Strasbourg Policy Centre

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he Mediterranean region has been the cradle

for the development of many civilizations over

the centuries, it has been the center of trade and

commerce, but has already seen too many conlicts.

Now, it is time to address fragmentation and

instability on its shores. Cooperation and

coordination among all the actors involved in

the Mediterranean is therefore of paramount

importance so as to achieve long-lasting stability

and therefore developed prosperity.

he contribution we have tried to provide

through this “food for thought” this year

aims at inspiring a real debate on how

to address such challenges. his volume

collects ten independent authors’ contributions

to be developed at the 10th edition of SHADE MED.

Shared Awareness and Deconfliction in the Mediterranean Shared Awareness and Deconfliction in the Mediterranean SHADE MED 2021SHADE MED 2021

Sharing security, culture and values for a shared prosperity in the Med

he opinions expressed in this publication do not represent the policies or points of view of either Operation EUNAVFOR MED IRINI or European Union.

Curated by POLAD Branch, CJE Branch and Media Cell European Union Headquarter EUNAVFOR MED IRINIVia di Centocelle, 30100175 - Rome, Italy

Produced and printed bywww.larmadilloeditore.itJuly 2021

isbn 9788899544454

The Mediterranean basin represents a funda-

mental global crossroad. It is a semi-enclosed

sea bordered by over 20 countries. Its shores

are home to more than 150 million inhabitants, a ig-

ure that doubles during the tourist season. he Blue

Economy in the Mediterranean region has a total value

estimated at USD 5.6 trillion and generates an annual

economic value of USD 450 billion.

It can count on more than 450 ports and terminals that

together account for approximately 30% of global sea-

borne trade (in volume), 25% of scheduled services on

containers, 30% of world oil lows, 65% of the energy

low to EU countries.

Over the last decade, the deep transformations that

swept through the wider Mediterranean region have led

to new challenges that overlap with old crises. We are

witnessing state fragility, humanitarian crises, migration

lows, conlicts, security threats, socio-economic inequal-

ities, challenges to the shipping community as well as re-

thinking of energy choices and a major shift in the energy

ield. All of this directly afects the region’s security.

he basin presents multiple strategic challenges, signii-

cantly worsened by the ongoing pandemic. COVID-19

has brought along the widespread use of the so-called

“health and vaccine diplomacy”, with some countries

using aid supplies, masks and vaccines to strengthen re-

gional ties and to enhance their own power and global

status. Rather than promoting global equity or providing

assistance to those most in need, donations have cement-

ed traditional spheres of inluence. Timely and univer-

sal access to COVID-19 vaccinations will determine

whether we can put an end to the pandemic prompt-

ly and place the world economy on the trajectory of a

resilient recovery or lose many more years of growth,

development and opportunities.

In our digital age, we often forget the fragility of

interconnected global networks. hree out of the nine

main global maritime choke points lie in the region.

Most recently, the MV Ever Given blockage of the

Suez Canal highlighted the risks the shipping industry

faces. A Lloyd’s List assessment of the losses due to the

blockade estimated that around USD 9.6 billion per

day were burned.

Furthermore, peace in Libya, if maintained, will yield

huge economic gains, not only for the country, but also

for its neighbouring countries, which are expected to

reap up to $162 billion by 2025. his is one of the main

results of a recent study by the United Nations Econom-

ic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA),

entitled: “Beneits of Peace in Libya: Neighbouring Coun-

tries and Beyond”. his means that the area’s stability

represents an essential element for global security and

economy, and therefore requires cooperation.

Along the Mediterranean’s Southern Flank and in

the maritime security ield, EU and NATO face new

geopolitical challenges and trends. Both organizations

have repeatedly expressed their willingness to work

more closely together to achieve security and stability of

the Euro-Atlantic area and its neighbourhood. Conse-

quently, they should increase the sharing of information

and better coordinate their activities in the Mediterra-

nean and elsewhere. Such cooperation, to be truly efec-

tive, should be extended to their respective operations.

he European Union is therefore called upon to

step up its comprehensive action in the Mediter-

ranenan – the EU’s backyard –, as other actors are

increasing their footprint to fulil their own national

interests. In this regard, the EU is developing a “stra-

tegic compass” to enhance its strategic autonomy, be-

come a stronger global player and deine what kind

Preface

Fabio AgostiniIRINI’s Operation Commander, Rear – Admiral

3

4 fabio agostini

of security and defence actor it wants to be. Building

on a common threat analysis, the strategic compass

aims to frame the EU’s level of ambition. It will set

out what the EU should be able to do and achieve in

the area of crisis management and resilience in the

next 5-10 years, as well as which capacities and part-

nerships (including EU-NATO) it will need in that

regard. he Strategic Compass will also set the scene

to understand what kind of maritime security actor

the EU intends to be.

Political will from EU Member States is at the core

of any debate about operational efectiveness and cred-

ibility. he changing geopolitical landscape is already

concerning EU governments and crisis management

today and is expected to increasingly do so in the fu-

ture. Strategic vacuums, technological shifts, hybrid

threats, climate change and geopolitical competition

will make crisis management in the Mediterranean

and elsewhere more challenging.

EUNAVFORMED IRINI is operating at the heart

of the Mediterranean Sea. With the main task of en-

suring the respect of United Nations’ arms embargo

regarding Libya, but also of contributing to hindering

illegal oil smuggling, human traicking and of train-

ing the Libyan Coast Guard and Navy.

IRINI is only one component of an all-encompass-

ing process involving political, military, economic and

humanitarian dimensions agreed upon at the irst Ber-

lin Conference on Libya of early 2020. his process

represents the European Union’s truly holistic approach

towards contributing to a long-lasting peace in Libya,

remaining equidistant from all the involved parties.

This volume dives deeper into the different trends

and challenges discussed above by providing 10

contributions from different independent authors

to be considered as “food for thought” to stimulate

the participants’ reflection and discussion at

the 10th SHADE MED conference.

The Mediterranean Sea has always been central

in developing war-ighting technology and

creating new maritime strategies. Maritime

geopolitics belongs to the Mediterranean in the early

battles between the Greeks and Persians, the Phoe-

nicians and the Romans. Since mankind started to

navigate the waters on the Mediterranean Sea, vastly

diferent civilisations came into contact – Europeans,

Africans, and Asians – and along with the exchange of

goods, languages, and people came conlict. he Medi-

terranean Sea was simply an enabler of it all. It is a small

basin of water compared to others, nevertheless one of

the most relevant.

he Mediterranean is in a central position among

cooperating as well as competing societies and nations. 

Indeed, Russia and Turkey are increasingly assu-

ming an assertive posture in diferent parts of the

Mediterranean Sea, especially in the Black Sea, the ea-

stern and the central Mediterranean. hrough a series

of analyses by experts from the academic and research

world, this volume aims to provide food for thought

to understand the multidimensional challenges which

afect the Mediterranean area.

he value of this work is to provide a clear, updated

and detailed picture for those who want to understand

deeply, not only for expert readers, the great importance

of the Mediterranean Sea. 

Since that, this volume contextualises the

Mediterranean region in the current evolving interna-

tional framework and analyses the main challenges and

unknown factors that will accompany the political tran-

sition in Libya, ten years after the Arab Springs.

Also, the European Union Strategic Compass should

redeine the objectives and capabilities of the EU in

future crises management to face new challenges and

threats.

Another contribution will address the Biden ad-

ministration posture in the region, considering the

renewed central role conferred by the US administra-

tion to NATO and the prospects for concrete collabo-

ration between the European Union and NATO in the

Southern Flank.

his edition also analyses how the region plays

a central role, especially in the process enabled by

the European Green Deal and the energy transition

processes.

Finally, for what concerns unconventional challen-

ges, the impact of Covid-19 on migratory lows, free-

dom of expression and information in the countries of

the enlarged Mediterranean area is also deeply analysed. 

his edition will provide the reader with a fully com-

prehensive picture of the future of the Mediterranean Sea.

Indeed, this area is today relevant more than ever, and it is

our duty to dedicate our eforts and attention to it.

Introduction

Matteo BressanInternational Relations and Strategic Studies Adjunct Professor at LUMSA University

and at Società Italiana per l’Organizzazione Internazionale (SIOI).

5

As Fernand Braudel wrote in his masterpiece

on the Mediterranean: “the Mediterra-

nean leaves History” (Braudel, 1995, I:

42-7). He correctly pointed out that after being one of

the pivots of global history for millennia, and deinitely

the main trigger of relations between East and West,

the basin had lost its centrality following the discovery

of America and the circumnavigation of Africa by Bar-

tolomeo Diaz at the end of the 15th century.

hose geographic discoveries opened maritime routes

that paved the way for the creation of new maritime

empires connected with the Atlantic and the Indian

Oceans, marginalizing for centuries the small, peripher-

al Mediterranean. Moving from a classical geopolitical

perspective, Sir Halford Mackinder considered those

events to be the rise of the “Columbian era”, which led

to the domination of the European maritime mercan-

tile empires, epitomized by the superiority of the Royal

Navy (Sloan, 2004).

Disconnected from the new routes, our basin thus

remained a marginal geostrategic scenario for centuries.

At least, until the excavation of the Suez Canal in the

second half of the 19th century and the concurrent

harsh phase of European Imperialism – well represented

by the European powers’ infamous “Scramble for Af-

rica” – allowed the Mediterranean to re-enter history.

he actors living around its shores were not the triggers

of history anymore, but the basin regained strategic

and economic importance as a hub contended between

three continents.

Even at the twilight of European primacy after the

end of the Second World War, the basin remained a

key element within the mechanisms of the bipolar

Cold War system. Indeed, in that period, the dominant

macro-modelling of the neo-realist approach gave the

Mediterranean basin a marked strategic stillness: it was

perceived as the “Southern Flank” of the Atlantic Alli-

ance, a well-deined and easily identiiable geographical

space where NATO had a dominant military role.

he collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the

following transition towards a post-bipolar phase rep-

resented a pivotal change for the balances of the inter-

national system, inevitably afecting the strategic and

political perception of the region (Xenakis, 2000).

For the United States, it ceased to be the “Southern

Flank” of the Alliance to become an important hub for

America’s strategic shift towards the Persian Gulf and

Asia. he new “peer competitor” of Washington became

China, prompting a refocusing of US strategic interests

from Europe to the Asia-Paciic region that in turn re-

duced both the visibility and interests of the US in our

basin.

herefore, during the 90s, the European Union be-

came the main actor responsible for the restructuring

and reorganization of the security architecture of the

enlarged Mediterranean basin. A task probably too

great for a European continent already focused on its

own rearrangement and on the enlargement towards

the former Warsaw Pact and Soviet space.

In the same period, Brussels launched a set of en-

gagement and conidence-building policies aimed at

enhancing its social, political and economic ties with

the countries of the Southern and Eastern Mediterra-

nean. Indeed, the main goal of the Euro-Mediterranean

Partnership, launched in 1995, was to forge closer rela-

tions and to promote political, economic and cultural

liberalizations, mostly relying on economic support and

soft power (Behr, 2012, 76).

At the same time, however, European countries con-

sidered backing the autocratic, yet Western-oriented,

In and out of history: the geopolitical role of the Mediterranean in a changing international system

Riccardo RedaelliDirector of the Center for Research on the Southern System and the Wider Mediterranean (CRiSSMA),

and Director of the Master on Middle Eastern Studies (MIMES), Catholic University of the S. Heart of Milano

7

Arab regimes, as an efective way to tackle the rise of

radical Islamist movements. he result was a luid, often

confused, “stability partnership” with a region always

deemed a secondary priority with respect to the Eastern

theatre.

his lack of real strategic attention became even

more acute and evident during the last decade, when

the EU progressively lost interest in engaging with

Southern and Eastern Mediterranean countries, in

particular after the 2008 economic crisis and the rise

of the so-called sovereign movements, marked by a

distinct Islamophobia and an anti-immigration obses-

sion. hey inevitably depicted the Mediterranean as a

cradle of threats and challenges: a cultural limes to be

defended and protected from the new “barbarians at

the gate”.

Concurrently, along its southern shores, the poorly

planned Anglo-American invasion of Iraq in 2003 and

the 2011 Arab uprisings triggered the explosion of

particularly violent civil wars in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and

Libya, as well as the rise of various non-state jihadist

movements competing in for inluence and visibility,

the return of Russian activism, and the growth of a vio-

lent induced polarization between Shiites and Sunnis.

All factors that contributed to a marked destabilization

of Middle Eastern security and overlapped the greater

geopolitical entropy of the globalization process and

the redistribution of power within a changing inter-

national system. he most evident result was a much

more accelerated deconstruction of balances (perhaps

precarious, but still existing) in various Mediterranean

sub-regions, as well as the end of the perception of the

Mediterranean Sea as an “American lake” - as it had

been since the Sixties.

In other words, due to the perceived decline of US

power (or at least a decline of its interest in the region),

the basin has become “challengeable” again, favouring

bolder initiatives by regional or external actors. From

a geopolitical perspective, because of wars, riots, inter-

nal clashes within the Islamic world, migrations and

the Chinese attempt to connect this sea to its Belt and

Road Initiative, the most important consequence is

that the region is now gaining a new centrality.

However, the most peculiar aspect of such rediscov-

ered centrality lies in the fact that it does not seem like

a sought-after centrality, but, on the contrary, a sort

of unexpected and unintended one. A consequence of

the multiple crises that cross the basin, rather than the

speciic will of its regional actors (Redaelli, Palgrave).

Historically, tensions and diferences at all levels (cul-

tural, religious, identity-related, social and economic)

did not prevent the Mediterranean from being an os-

motic liminal space for a great part of its long history.

It was only in the last decades that the perception of

the same basin as a barrier, as an identity-related fron-

tier, became stronger as a result of the already men-

tioned traumatic factors and events.

Besides, this plurality of terrible conlicts and crises

has in some ways hidden the economic and commer-

cial trends evolving within the basin, such as its role

in global trade or the creation of new commercial

corridors (like the Chinese Road and Belt Initiative)

that are forging a new centrality of the Mediterranean

also from the geo-economic and maritime economy

perspectives. Despite accounting for only 1% of the

world’s oceans, in fact, this sea generates around 15%

of global maritime traic and 20% of the related eco-

nomic value: it is a fundamental global socio-econom-

ic crossroad (GRID Arendal, 2013).

Even from an energy perspective, our basin is play-

ing a growing signiicant role thanks to the discovery

of giant natural gas ields in the Eastern Mediterra-

nean. According to United States Geological Survey

estimates, the Levant Basin – notably the waters of Cy-

prus, Egypt, Israel, Lebanon, and Palestine – contains

122.4 trillion cubic feet of technically recoverable gas

(Bowlus, 2020). heir exploitation plays therefore an

extremely important role at both geo-economic and

geopolitical levels, as the eastern part of the sea may

aspire to become not only an important hub for the

transit of natural gas towards Europe, but a direct pro-

vider of energy itself.

8 riccardo redaelli

For better or for worse, the Mediterranean is back,

fully entangled in current global history. Unfortunately,

the perception of challenges within the enlarged borders

of the European Union, the economic crisis of the last

decade and the efects of the pandemic have weakened

any attempt to consistently articulate a European re-

gional security project. his lack of vision and interest

provided room for nationalistic logics that have exposed

the Union to diverging policies, unilateral initiatives

and to a downturn of the traditional engagement and

support policies launched soon after the end of the

Cold War (Colombo and Soler I Lecha, 2019).

Yet, at the same time, the balance of the Mediterra-

nean basin is currently shaken by a plurality of other

trends and phenomena that go beyond the traditional

geopolitical dynamics here analysed. Among the most

evident ones: the demographic alteration occurring be-

tween the two shores of the sea and the role played by

the so-called “bulge generation” in MENA countries,

with multifarious consequences and implications for

regional stability and North-South relations.

In conclusion, the wider Mediterranean basin is

presently experiencing the controversial unfolding of a

complex entanglement of political, economic and secu-

rity crises that are shaking the bases of our socio-polit-

ical and institutional systems, and often translate into

conlicts based on religious, ethnic or tribal identities.

However, it is too easy to focus only on the crises and

polarizing trends tormenting our basin. On the con-

trary, it is important that Mediterranean European

member states, such as Italy, emphasise the potential

positive centrality of this sea, underlining the impor-

tance of creating a new long-term strategy to address

the imbalances and the elements of instability of the

region. A vision that should not be only based on the

interests of some single actor, relying on the outdated

strategic vision of the zero-sum game theory. It is rather

is essential to envisage and promote a holistic vision

that might stimulate collective human security for all

the Mediterranean peoples and for the areas gravitating

around this sea.

Indeed, the only rational answer to seismic, epochal

changes, is trying to govern and adapt to them, not to

ignore them. Being aware that the Mediterranean Sea is

here, within history, to again play an important role in

the future international system.

riccardo redaelli 9

1 – Map of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region; source: World Bank. Beyond Scarcity: Water Security in the Middle East and North Africa, World Bank: Washington, DC, USA, 2017; p. 233, CC License.

REFERENCES

Behr, T., he European Union’s Mediterranean Policies af-

ter the Arab Spring: Can the Leopard Change its Spots?,

“Amsterdam Law Forum”, 2012, 4(2): 76-88.

Bowlus, J.V., Eastern Mediterranean gas: Testing the

ield, ECFR, May 2020 (https://ecfr.eu/special/

eastern_med/gas_ields)

Braudel, F., he Mediterranean and the Mediterranean

World in the Age of Philip II, 2 vols., New York: Harp-

er and Row, (1972)

Colombo, S. and Soler i Lecha, E., A Half-Empty Glass:

Limits and Dilemmas of the EU’s Relations to the

MENA Countries, MENARA Working Papers, 2019,

39: 1-31.

GRID ARENDAL, Maritime transportation routes in

the Mediterranean, 2013 (https://www.grida.no/

resources/5920).

Redaelli R., A geo-historical compass for the ‘new Med-

iterranean’ in. Corrao F.M. and Redaelli R, (Eds),

Perspective on the new centrality of the Mediterranean.

States, Actors and Geopolitical Drivers in a Changing

Region, London: Palgrave – Macmillan, 2021.

Sloan G. Sir Halford Mackinder: he Heartland heory

hen and Now, in Gray, C.S. and Sloan, G., Geopol-

itics, Geography and Strategy London: F. Cass, 2004.

Xenakis, D., Order and Change in the Euro-Mediterra-

nean System, in “Mediterranean Quarterly”, 2000, 11

(2): 75-90.

10 riccardo redaelli

We are facing a dangerous, unpredict-

able and luid international envi-

ronment, a constant challenge, and

NATO has to ind ways to respond to security threats.

A combination of cultural factors, social, ethnic and

religious issues, political and economic instability af-

fects the current international situation. New menaces

are emerging from many directions: from state and

non-state actors to terrorist, cyber and hybrid attacks.

Today, international security and crisis management

need more than ever a multidimensional and global

approach. he very concept of security is not only tied

to the military dimension of each individual nations,

but is a transnational need that calls into question inter-

national organisation and a very diferent set of skills.

Since 1949, through seven decades, NATO man-

aged to adapt efectively to the evolution of the inter-

national landscape. From the beginning, the Alliance’s

project had a great scope and ambition: to put together

North America and Europe, what was called the free

world, the most relevant democracies globally, with

the aim to defend common values and shared inter-

ests against Communism and the threat of the Soviet

Union. he preamble of NATO’s founding Treaty

says that the Alliance was established to promote the

stability and wellbeing of the North Atlantic area and

its people. Indeed, it responded promptly to historic

events and addressed the related challenges and threats

efectively.

Nowadays, NATO is still there and the fact itself

means something. It has 30 members and has survived

successfully through many crucibles: a Cold War that

lasted for two generations, Bosnia, Kosovo, 9\11,

Afghanistan, just to mention some important dates.

he crises in the Balkans and in Afghanistan led to the

adoption of new Strategic Concepts in 1999 and 2010.

Notably, with the one in 1999, NATO transformed

itself. From an instrument for collective defence,

it has become an instrument of collective security.

It embraced the idea of intervening also outside the

Euro-Atlantic area under UN mandate and wherever

events would breed potential risks to the security of

the Member States.

Particularly relevant to understanding how the

Alliance was turning into a global policy instrument

is the item 24 of the 1999 Strategic Concept, which

sets out the challenges NATO may face. “Alliance

security interests can be afected by other risks of a

wider nature, including acts of terrorism, sabotage and

organized crime, and by the disruption of the low of

vital resources. he uncontrolled movement of large

numbers of people, particularly as a consequence of

armed conlicts, can also pose problems for security

and stability afecting the Alliance”.

NATO is therefore aware that the military alone

cannot solve complex international crises. To be suc-

cessful, it must necessarily cooperate and interact with

the civilian dimension. Following this trend, with the

Strategic Concept of 2010, Crisis Management was

added to the other two NATO’s core tasks, Collective

Defence and Cooperative Security.

A multidimensional approach known as

“Comprehensive Approach” will be instrumental in

fulilling these pillars. he expression refers to the

interaction between the political, civil and military

dimensions while planning and conducting joint op-

erations. It should be achieved through the exchange

of information and lessons learned, carrying out joint

training phases, delivering public messages, and in-

volving international organisations, governmental and

EU-NATO cooperation in the Southern Flank

Amb. Alessandro Minuto-RizzoPresident of the NATO Defense College Foundation

11

non-governmental institutions, as well as academia,

in military planning. All these stakeholders may be

engaged or interested in solving a speciic internation-

al crisis, providing NATO with the wider knowledge

required to better understand diferent challenges and

environments.

In all instances the transatlantic bond worked suc-

cessfully: Americans, Canadians and Europeans acting

hand in hand and becoming fully interoperable. hat

is why we use to say that it is the most successfully

political-military Alliance in history. Seven decades

have proved that the Unites States and Europe are a

winning ticket. Yet, at the same time, it is clear that

the world is changing fast, perhaps too fast, and we

cannot live on past glories.

he deterioration of security in the Mediterranean,

due in part to the collapse of the regional order that

existed before the Arab Spring, has made the Middle

East and North Africa particularly unstable. he 10-

year crisis in Syria, as well as the fragmentation in Libya,

have had direct consequences on Europe. Terrorist or-

ganisations and private military companies have prolif-

erated, and those very countries are the point of origin

of foreign ighters and migratory lows.

For its part, NATO has devoted its attention and

agenda to these types of challenges too. Since the

Warsaw Summit in 2016, the Alliance put the mis-

sion of projecting stability outside its borders at the

top of its agenda, then developing also a “Framework

for the South” as a strategy for the stabilisation of

the North African and the Middle Eastern regions.

A “Package on the South” was created as well with a

variety of political and practical cooperation initiatives

that aimed at the establishment of a more coherent

approach towards the area.

Today, NATO is committed to continue to adapt

in order to be ready for a concrete and proportionate

response to any kind of potential threats. To this end,

though, restructuring and boosting the Alliance’s at-

tention and commitment towards its Southern Flank

will be mandatory tasks. A wide spectrum of risks and

hybrid threats emerged from this side of the world,

and a new arc of crisis going from the East to the

South is looming. A wide spectrum of new actions and

challenging instruments are at play, spanning from

military force and economic pressure to technology,

crime, terrorism, humanitarian and religious dynam-

ics, intelligence, sabotage and disinformation. Hybrid

warfare too is not limited to the traditional battleield:

it is in the cyberspace as well and exploits the potential

of modern media to isolate, weaken, and erode the

legitimacy of the opponent. hese actions are typical

of States, but also of non-state actors such as militias,

terrorist and criminal groups.

Following the identiication and deinition of hybrid

warfare, NATO acted to strengthen its capabilities and

adopted a holistic understanding of the challenges it

would face both in the East and the South, with the

aim to remain “strong, ready and reactive, to be able to

face the present and future challenges from wherever

they come”.

he 2014 NATO Summit in Wales and the 2016

NATO Summit in Warsaw have shown how NATO

and the European Union, through their historic joint

statement, were able to respond to Russia’s asser-

tive attitude and to the challenges coming from the

Southern Flank. From those years on, the cooperation

between NATO and the EU continued to signiicantly

evolve in order to keep pace with the new common

security environment: the European Union is and will

evermore be a unique and indispensable partner for

the Alliance, and not only to facilitate the mobility of

forces on the ield.

We should remember that the European Union

started to have permanent bodies dedicated to foreign

policy and defence in Brussels only since 2000, and its

irst High Representative was Javier Solana, a former

Secretary General of NATO. In other words, it is a

rather recent development.

Up to 2004, we witnessed the big enlargement of

both organisations and regular contacts took place

between the North Atlantic Council and the Political

12 alessandro minuto-rizzo

and Security Committee. A crucial agreement allowed

also the European Union to autonomously launch

an operation and automatically have the support of

NATO assets and capabilities. he EU-led operation

in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Operation Althea, was the

concrete result of such an agreement.

As a matter of fact, the Balkan region is where

the cooperation between the EU and NATO has

been stronger: it has been the case in Bosnia and

Herzegovina, Kosovo, FYROM and Albania.

After a period of rather uneventful relations

linked in large part to political problems due to the

enlargement, the situation then improved with the

2014 NATO Summit Wales. In that occasion, NATO

Secretary General and the EU High Representative

decided upon a large number of issues where the two

organizations should cooperate.

What is to be kept in mind is that, between the

European Union and the Alliance, the membership is

largely overlapping. Besides, there should be no du-

plication because the taxpayers should not pay twice.

Finally, we are going in the direction of an inter-

national environment both diicult and fragmented.

here is a need for a comprehensive agreement, some

kind of division of labour where the added value of

convergence and cooperation should prevail. In this

sense, the Mediterranean is an ideal space where our

democracies should go beyond a purely technical at-

titude joining forces to face common challenges and

opportunities.

alessandro minuto-rizzo 13

1 – A irst Joint Declaration signed in Warsaw in July 2016 identiied seven concrete areas for enhanced cooperation between the EU and NATO:1. COUNTERING HYBRID THREATS;2. OPERATIONAL COOPERATION INCLUDING

AT SEA AND ON MIGRATION;3. CYBER SECURITY AND DEFENCE;4. DEFENCE CAPABILITIES;5. DEFENCE INDUSTRY AND RESEARCH;6. EXERCISES;7. SUPPORTING EASTERN AND SOUTHERN

PARTNERS’ CAPACITY- BUILDING EFFORTS.

For years Libya appeared to be on the edge of a

precipice, trapped within a disruptive intermit-

tent military confrontation between rival fac-

tions, socio-political turmoil and a still ongoing eco-

nomic crisis that erupted after the fall of Mu‘ammar

al-Qadhai’s regime in 2011.

In October 2020, the achievement of a ceaseire

agreement signed by the warring parties and the fol-

lowing UN-mediated political talks led the Libyan

Political Dialogue Forum – which brought together 75

participants as representatives of the country’s multi-

ple constituencies – to elect a three-person Presidency

Council headed by Mohamed Mnei and a Prime Min-

ister, Abdulhamid Dabaiba, with the task of forming a

Government of National Unity (GNU).

After having obtained the conidence vote of the di-

vided Parliament and the agreement of the two parallel

governments to the transfer of powers in March 2021,

as well as a general consent of the respective military

coalitions to collaborate with the new executive, the

government now aims to inaugurate a new, possibly his-

toric milestone in the fragile Libyan context. However,

while this represents a tangible step towards the reunii-

cation of the country under a new executive authority,

it does not mean that the next moves will be easy. here

are still many challenges facing the new government to

move the political transition forward and carry out the

UN-backed roadmap that should lead to the general

elections scheduled for December 24, 2021.

1 Dorda Mohamed, Crowley Oliver, Moshashai Daniel, Inside Libya, Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung e. V., May 2021, pp. 5-6, https://www.kas.de/documents/282499/282548/Inside+Libya+May+Edition.pdf/a438aec1-9abe-3bf-6791-a2f44373ed4aversion=1.0&t=1620055200819.

2 International Crisis Group (ICG), Libya Turns the Page, Middle East and North Africa Report n. 222, 21 May 2021, p. 8, https://d2071andvip0wj.cloudfront.net/222-libya-turns-the-page.pdf.

First of all, there is a lack of consensus on the consti-

tutional framework for elections, since the country has

neither a constitutional basis for the vote nor an elector-

al law1. A condition that, together with other structural

obstacles, risks derailing the fragile political process.

Indeed, there are the well-known political, military and

socio-economic problems afecting Libya since the fall

of the previous regime.

Since 2014, the political and geographical division

of the country, based mainly on conlicts over inan-

cial disputes and competition for the allocation of state

funds among rival groups, had made any attempts at

reuniication inefective. Yet, some steps have been tak-

en in a positive direction: in February 2021, the Tripoli

government agreed to assume all the parallel eastern au-

thorities’ expenditures, including the Haftar-led forces’

salaries and operating costs, obtaining, in exchange, the

east-based government’s promise to stop its use of side

revenue sources2. At the same time, the Central Bank of

Libya (CBL) decided to inancially support a group of

banks based in eastern Libya.

hese developments it in line with one of the most

important priorities of the new executive, which is

reunifying the country and its divided institutions,

including the military and CBL, as well as fostering

reconciliation after years of chaos and conlict. In

this unstable condition, persisting controversy on the

resources’ allocation could put the political situation

into a dramatic deadlock. Especially considering

Libya’s main challenges: the local political scenario in an evolving regional context

Alessia MelcangiTT Assistant Professor of Contemporary History of North Africa and the Middle East, Sapienza University of Rome;

Non-resident Senior Fellow, Atlantic Council, Washington DC

15

that the country continues to be alicted by a harsh

economic crisis that has been worsening the Libyans’

living conditions through the last decade.

After the oil blockade was lifted in September 2020,

oil production has almost returned to pre-blockade lev-

els, which is promising news for a more general improve-

ment of the country’s economic and social conditions3.

Nevertheless, there are multiple diiculties in dealing

with the Covid-19 pandemic, improving the delivery

of basic services and rebooting the economy. he new

government might ind a consensus over the manage-

ment of Libya’s economy, a challenge that is currently

diicult to overcome due to the feuds that over time

have contributed to make the two sides skeptical about

the possibility of re-establishing a central authority.

In the security ield, the emergence of two rival

military coalitions in 2014 and the proliferation of a

plethora of militias make the feasibility of establishing a

uniied military command structure extremely diicult:

beside the various attempts to launch a credible security

sector reform (SSR), the reality on the ground is that

militias continue to fortify and protect their positions

in western Libya ‒ sometimes representing part of the

state apparatus without any accountability ‒, while the

East continues to be in the hands of various groups and

militias only apparently reunited under the name of

Haftar’s Libyan National Army (LNA).

Even more crucial is the issue of the withdrawal of

foreign military forces and private military contrac-

tors that is currently stalling, at least until now, since

the summer of 2021. he presence of foreign troops

represents a fundamental backbone for the military

coalitions supporting the two rival Libyan factions:

3 Mezran Karim, Melcangi Alessia, “Economic Interests, Political Conlicts, and External Interferences. he Complex Interlocking of the Libyan Crisis”, in he East Mediterranean and Regional Security: A Transatlantic Trialogue, FPRI and Heinrich Boll Stiftung (Istanbul and Washington DC), December 2020, pp. 1-2, https://www.fpri.org/article/2020/11/complex-interlocking-libya-crisis/.

4 UN Security Council, Continued Violations of Arms Embargo, Delays in Withdrawing Foreign Mercenaries hreatening Hard-Won Gains in Libya, Special Envoy Warns Security Council, 21 May 2021, https://www.un.org/press/en/2021/sc14526.doc.htm.

5 Al-Jazeera, Libya gov’t hopeful mercenaries will withdraw ‘within days’, 23 June 2021, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/6/23/libyan-fm-hopes-mercenaries-pull-our-after-progress-in-berlin.

Russian-backed mercenaries alongside the Haftar forc-

es, Turkey-backed Syrian ighters on Tripoli’s side, and

a vast range of African armed groups that have been op-

erating in Libya since the start of the conlict (the UN

estimates some 20,000 foreign ighters and mercenaries

still being in Libya)4.

he withdrawal of foreign ighters, which was agreed

upon as part of a ceaseire reached in October 2020,

is a crucial pre-condition for having secure elections

and a stable political situation. his clearly emerged

during the second UN-sponsored conference held June

23 in Berlin, when Western powers agreed to put an

end to international meddling and on a gradual process

of withdrawal of foreign troops and mercenaries from

the country5. he new executive might consider that

the resolution of this issue will require further consen-

sus-building and strong international support in order

to avoid a renewed rising of tensions among local actors

and regional powers, whose continuous interferences

are the main external challenges the GNU has to face in

the following months.

Regional and international actors such as Turkey –

which backed Tripoli-based militias and the military co-

alition allied with the former Government of National

Accord (GNA) – on one side, and Egypt, the United

Arab Emirates (UAE) and Russia – which all covertly

supported Haftar-led forces – on the other, continue to

weigh, as in the past, on the Libyan theater, dragging

the conlict into regional tensions. Although the two

sides’ foreign backers oicially declared their support

for the new government, the risk of renewed hostilities

at a later stage remains, triggered by their antagonistic

interests in the country.

16 alessia melcangi

Despite the ceaseire agreement,

Turkey and Russia continue to

maintain a signiicant military

presence in Libya, facing each

other in the Sirte-Al Jufra region,

a strategically important Oil Cres-

cent, accounting for more than half

of Libya’s crude exports, consid-

ered to be a “red line” not to cross

for both the rival groups6. In this

frozen context, Turkey is strength-

ening its presence at the Wutiya air

military base, a few hundred miles

south of Tripoli. Considering the

amount of military and tech-

nological assets provided by the

Turkish forces, this appears to be a long-term presence,

rather than a temporary one. hanks to the defense and

maritime agreements signed with Libya’s former GNA,

Ankara can hardly consider the possibility of withdraw-

ing its troops as a preliminary binding condition for

continuation of the peace process.

For its part, Russia is reciprocating Turkey’s moves,

scaling up its military presence at the Al Jufra base, in

central Libya, a few hundred miles south of the city of

Sirte. Russian-backed Wagner forces currently repre-

sent Haftar’s main foreign military backing (reportedly

funded by the UAE) in areas under his control, which

include eastern, central and parts of southern Libya7.

Diferently from these stances, Egypt has bet on re-

launching the diplomatic path, appearing as the most

compromise-seeking actor among the Libyan general’s

backers8. he Egyptian government, indeed, seems

6 Badi Emadeddin, To advance its own interests, Turkey should now help stabilize Libya, War on the Rocks, 24 May 2021, https://warontherocks.com/2021/05/to-advance-its-own-interests-turkey-should-now-help-stabilize-libya/.

7 Harchaoui Jalel, The pendulum: how Russia sways its way to more inluence in Libya, War on the Rocks, 7 Juanuary 2021, https://warontherocks.com/2021/01/the-pendulum-how-russia-sways-its-way-to-more-inluence-in-libya/.

8 Melcangi Alessia, Egypt recalibrated its strategy in Libya because of Turkey, Atlantic Council, 1 June 2021, https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/menasource/egypt-recalibrated-its-strategy-in-libya-because-of-turkey/.

9 Fattah Zainab, Noueihed Lin, Westall Sylvia, UAE steps back from wars as Biden reasserts mideast role, Bloomberg, 28 February 2021, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-28/uae-steps-back-from-foreign-wars-as-biden-reasserts-mideast-role.

willing to support the new Libyan executive authority

not only through oicial statements but also with several

agreements signed with the GNU in fundamental sectors

of interest for both the countries (energy, communica-

tions, infrastructure, investments, and transport).

In this context, the UAE began withdrawing its mil-

itary equipment from Libya, and relocating it at a mili-

tary base on the Egyptian border. If it apparently seems

committed to recalibrating its foreign policy priorities,

taking a sort of “strategic pause” regarding its active in-

volvement in the Libyan crisis and oicially conirming

its support to the new executive authority in Libya, it is

rumored that the UAE continues its disruptive policies

on the ground9. 

If the necessity of pulling back foreign forces from the

country is essential to preserve the ceaseire’s long-term

viability and the roadmap toward elections, at the same

alessia melcangi 17

1 – International representatives at the Second Berlin Conference on Libya which was held on June 23, 2021

time it is important to consider the consequences of the

possible reconiguration of alliances that is currently un-

folding among regional actors. We are indeed witnessing

a de-escalation between the war’s main foreign protago-

nists – Turkey and Qatar on one side, and Egypt, the UAE

and Saudi Arabia on the other –, which can strengthen a

constructive approach to a peaceful settlement in Libya.

Looking at the regional level, the restoration of diplo-

matic relations between Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt

and Bahrain with Qatar, signed in January 2021 with

the Al-Ula agreement, along with the present tentative

rapprochement between Egypt and Turkey, could pave

the way for a credible international convergence behind a

political path forward. In this context, the Biden admin-

istration, which has apparently triggered a realignment of

the international and regional actors dealing with Libya,

can now push for a temporary eicient ceaseire monitor-

ing before UNSMIL inalizes a permanent mission10, as

stated in Berlin II.

he re-engagement of the US could foster a more

active and coordinated role of the EU in the Libyan dos-

sier, which should work to protect and reinforce the new

administration’s unifying authority over the country11.

Too long distracted by internal rivalries and unilateral

interests, the EU needs to rediscover a collaborative ap-

proach working at multiple levels: at the domestic one, it

should converge in supporting the UN-backed process in

Libya, preventing the present diiculties from derailing

the election process; at the regional level, the EU should

contribute to defuse tensions in the area, relaunching

multilateral dialogues among regional players. he recent

rapprochement between Italy and France, despite their

political divergences, and their common support for the

ceaseire are a sign that something could be about to

change in the area.

10 Fishman Ben, El Gomati Anas, Making Libya’s Berlin Process Work, he Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 21 June 2021, https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/making-libyas-berlin-process-work.

11 Megerisi Tarek, Plot twist: How Europe should deal with Libya’s new government, European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), 12 February 2021, https://ecfr.eu/article/plot-twist-how-europe-should-deal-with-libyas-new-government/.

12 Operation EUNAVFOR MED IRINI website, https://www.operationirini.eu/.

he ongoing EU Operation IRINI12 – established to

enforce the arms embargo at sea – might be instrumental

to revitalizing the European Common Security and De-

fense Policy, providing a base for a new European collab-

oration in solving the Libyan crisis, as well as creating the

conditions for a permanent ceaseire.

he appointment of an interim unity government in

Libya represents a historic achievement for a conlict-torn

country such as Libya. But this success has to be strength-

ened by a clear roadmap based on solid ground and by

a strong international commitment to supporting it. If

that does not happen, all the challenges remaining un-

addressed could risk dragging the country into the abyss

of war again.

18 alessia melcangi

The European Union has made tangible steps

forward in security and defence in recent

years. he EU Global Strategy put in place

a new strategic rationale for the EU and it stressed

the importance for member states to invest in secu-

rity and defence in order to better respond to a more

hostile world. All around Europe are crises. Russia’s

actions in Eastern Europe, Turkey’s destabilising ef-

forts in the Eastern Mediterranean, the Syria and

Libya conlicts, the insecurity in the Sahel, and vi-

olent piracy in the Gulf of Guinea are all worrying

developments. In particular, the Mediterranean is the

location for growing geopolitical concerns. Clearly,

the EU is not living in the “secure, prosperous and

free” world so conidently proclaimed in the 2003

European Security Strategy.1

To meet these challenges, the EU has set out, since

2016, to enhance its strategic autonomy2, defence

capabilities, operational readiness and technological

robustness. Today, there is a veritable alphabet soup

of initiatives from “CARD” to “PESCO”, “EPF” to

“MPCC” and the “EDF”. Even though the Perma-

nent Structured Cooperation, the Coordinated An-

nual Review on Defence, the Military Planning and

Conduct Capability, the European Defence Fund

and the European Peace Facility are much needed

tools for EU security and defence, there is still a lack

of focus on what the Union wants to achieve in oper-

ational terms. Enter the “Strategic Compass”.

1 he ideas expressed in this chapter do not necessarily relect those of the EUISS or the European Union.2 Sabatino, E. (ed) “he Quest for European Strategic Autonomy – A Collective Relection”, 2020, Istituto Afari

Internazionali, https://www.iai.it/en/pubblicazioni/quest-european-strategic-autonomy-collective-relection.

Facing threats as a Union

With a process that began in mid-2020, the EU’s Strate-

gic Compass is an opportunity for the Union’s member

states to answer some basic questions: where, why, how

and with what means should the EU act in security

and defence? Precise answers to these questions have

not been given to the EU’s and member states’ defence

planners, at least not in light of the current security

context and geopolitical competition. Due in March

2022, the Strategic Compass should give clear guidance

on how the EU could be a more robust crisis manager,

a generator of resilience, a more capable actor and a

reliable partner.

However, the Strategic Compass is more than just

a guidance document or “white book” for EU security

and defence. It is also supposed to generate greater stra-

tegic solidarity among EU member states for the threats

facing Europe. When the EU pushed for the Compass

in mid-2020, it did so fully recognising that its member

states have diferent national threat perceptions. Indeed,

European security looks and feels diferent depending

on where you stand: Dublin’s threat perception is dif-

ferent to Riga’s.

Of course, the Strategic Compass will not create an

EU strategic culture overnight but it is a start. his is

why before the concrete work on the Compass, started

in January 2021, EU member states agreed to irst con-

duct a threat analysis. he analysis detailed the threats

facing the Union over the next 5 to 10 years with a full

Towards a strategic compass for the EU

Daniel FiottSecurity and Defence Editor at the EU Institute for Security Studies (EUISS)1

19

360 degree outlook. his was a irst for the EU in that

member states did not agree line-by-line to the conclu-

sions of the analysis. he threat analysis is not a politi-

cally agreed document but an independent intelligence

product elaborated by the Union’s Single Intelligence

Analysis Capacity (SIAC)3, in cooperation with the in-

telligence services of the member states.

he threat analysis was delivered to EU member states

in November 2020 and, because it is understandably a

classiied document not available in the public domain,

the precise conclusions are not known4. However, a ma-

jor conclusion was that the next 5 to 10 years will be

increasingly hostile for the EU5. hreats include water

and food insecurity, climate change, migratory pressures,

war and military conlicts, failing states, regional power

expansion, hybrid threats, terrorism and more. With the

threat analysis in hand, the work on the Strategic Com-

pass could begin – the analysis raised a sense of urgency,

detailed shared threats and outlined the security parame-

ters in which the process should proceed.

Four baskets as the points on the Compass

Compasses have four points and a needle, but the EU

Strategic Compass is not comprised of the usual points:

North, East, South and West. Instead, the Strategic

Compass points to four core features of EU security

and defence: crisis management, resilience, capabilities

and partnerships. he four points or “baskets” seek to

provide greater operational clarity for defence planners

in the EU. On crisis management, what speciic mil-

itary operations and civilian missions should the EU

plan for and what geographical areas or zones should be

3 he SIAC is comprised of the EU Intelligence Centre and the EU Military Staf Intelligence branch.4 European External Action Service, “Memo - Questions and answers: hreat Analysis - a background for the Strategic

Compass”, https://eeas.europa.eu/sites/default/iles/2020_11_20_memo_questions_and_answers_-_threat_analsysis_-_copy.pdf.

5 Fiott, D., “Uncharted territory? Towards a common threat analysis and a Strategic Compass for EU security and defence”, EUISS Brief, No. 16, July 2020, https://www.iss.europa.eu/content/uncharted-territory-towards-common-threat-analysis-and-strategic-compass-eu-security-and.

6 For example, the EU Institute for Security Studies (EUISS) has organised six speciic workshops on the global com-mons, crisis management, defence industry, capabilities and security of supply. See here: https://www.iss.europa.eu/tags/strategic-compass.

a priority? On resilience, what more can the EU do to

protect critical infrastructure and supply chains which

are vital for defence? On capabilities, how can the EU

prioritise the most pressing capabilities and proit from

emerging defence technologies? On partnerships, how

can the Union better engage with regional organisations

and like-minded states and organisations to advance its

security and defence interests?

Of course, dividing the Strategic Compass between

these four baskets is in reality artiicial as, for example,

one cannot talk about military operations without con-

sidering what capabilities will be required. Although

the artiicial division is required for the purposes of

drafting the document, it will be important to keep

in mind cross-cutting issues such as hybrid threats,

cyber defence and ensuring that the EU can secure its

interests on the global commons (maritime, space, air

and cyber). he four baskets should help organise the

Compass’ conclusions, but the Compass will only make

a diference if it is concrete and geared to meeting the

collective challenges identiied in the hreat Analysis.

Since January 2021, the Strategic Compass process

has advanced rapidly. Not only have the European Ex-

ternal Action Service (EEAS) produced a scoping paper,

but the member states have also - both alone and joint-

ly - submitted non-papers to detail the direction they

believe EU security and defence should head. Accom-

panying these papers have been virtual and physical ex-

changes including a series of ministerial meetings, gath-

erings in the Political and Security Committee (PSC)

and in the EU Military Committee (EUMC), and EU

member state-sponsored workshops6. Each meeting is

20 daniel fiott

designed to volunteer new ideas, set realistic parameters

and discuss priorities in EU security and defence.

hese meetings have not just been talking shops, how-

ever. In fact, to date many have led to new ideas in each of

the four baskets such as the need for a joint civil-military

doctrine and regular joint exercises; creating an EU cyber

defence unit and a 5,000-strong EU force and enablers;

exploring the use of Article 44 to allow a group of willing

member states to lead on a military operation; permitting

the EU Military Staf and MPCC to conduct advanced

planning; expanding the Coordinated Maritime Presence

(CMP) concept to other maritime zones of interest for

the EU; conducting air and naval live exercises, and draft-

ing an EU space and defence strategy and more. New

ideas, but nothing has been agreed in stone yet.

Looking for direction

Despite the enthusiasm with which the EEAS and EU

member states are engaging in the Strategic Compass

7 Fiott, D. (ed.) he CSDP in 2020: he EU’s legacy and Ambition in Security and Defence (Paris: EU Institute for Security

Studies, 2020), https://www.iss.europa.eu/content/csdp-2020.

process, the real challenge facing the EU is not so

much the quality or quantity of new ideas. Indeed,

what will matter is how far EU member states are will-

ing to give life to the words that will eventually end up

on the pages of the Strategic Compass. he irst test

will be when the irst draft of the Compass is presented

to member states in November 2021. As the Strategic

Compass will be adopted by member states, there is

a risk that ambition will be watered down or that it

will not be up to meeting the challenges outlined in

the hreat Analysis. Certainly, given the geopolitical

changes underway, the EU cannot aford to repeat the

disappointments of the past twenty years in security

and defence.7

In this regard, it is necessary for the Strategic Com-

pass to be embedded in national defence planning

processes - governments must have ownership. With

CARD and PESCO, member states have already acqui-

esced to an unprecedented intrusion in their defence

daniel fiott 21

1 – The Four Baskets of the Strategic Compass.

planning processes since 2016. Following the May

2021 meeting of defence ministers, it seems as though

the Strategic Compass will also be subject to speciic

timelines for implementation and a regular political

review8. he Compass itself or even the hreat Analysis

may be revised in 5 years’ time. his is a positive way

8 Council of the EU, “Council Conclusions on Security and Defence”, 8396/21, Brussels, 10 May 2021, https://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/ST-8396-2021-INIT/en/pdf.

of keeping up the political pressure and to ensure that

commitments made at the EU level are not suddenly

side-lined in capitals. Given the structural changes and

security challenges facing the EU, it seems unlikely that

its member states will have the luxury of letting time

wear down initiatives agreed in Brussels.

22 daniel fiott

Introduction

As US foreign policy rebalances towards Chi-

na, President Biden described his approach

to the Middle East in the interim nation-

al security strategic guidance as “right-sizing” American

military presence “to the level required to disrupt in-

ternational terrorist networks, deter Iranian aggression,

and protect other vital US interests.”1 While US policy

to the Middle East is still being leshed out, it’s clear the

return to the nuclear deal negotiations with Iran will be a

chief priority. Where does this leave the Mediterranean,

a strategically vital region in NATO’s south? What does

this mean for proxy forces, especially so-called Russian

PMCs, private military companies that have instrumen-

tal especially in Libya? In part, these issues have to fall

under the broader policy towards Russia.

Recent US steps

President Biden’s overall approach to the Mediterra-

nean remains unclear. Tony Blinken told the House

Foreign Afairs Committee in March that the US

1 President Joseph R. Biden Jr., Interim National Security Strategic Guidance, White House, March 2021, https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/NSC-1v2.pdf2 Tasos Kokkinidis, “Blinken Slams Turkey’s Provocative Actions Against Greece,” Greekreporter.com, March 11, 2021 https://greekreporter.com/2021/03/11/blinken-slams-turkey-provocative-actions-against-greece/3 John Vandiver, “US and Greece Working on Deal to Expand Military Cooperation in the Mediterranean,” Military.com May 15 2021 https://www.military.com/daily-news/2021/05/15/us-and-greece- working-deal-expand-military-cooperation-mediterranean.html4 Readout of President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. Call with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey,” April 23, 2021 https://www.whitehouse.gov/brieing-room/statements-releases/2021/04/23/readout-of-president-joseph-r-biden-jr-call-

with-president-recep-tayyip-erdogan-of-turkey/ “Biden, Erdogan to discuss their diferences next week - White House,” Reuters June 7, 2021 https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/biden-erdogan-discuss-their-diferences-next-week-white-house-2021-06-07/5 Kenneth R. Rosen, “How Delta Crescent Fell Short in Trump’s ‘Keep the Oil’ Plan in Syria,” he Daily Beast, May 31,

2021 https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-delta-crescent-fell-short-in-trumps-keep-the-oil-plan-in-syria Aamer Madhani, The Associated Press, “Biden ending Trump OK for US oil company in Syria, says oicial,”

will remain “fully engaged” on the Cyprus issue and

expressed concern about Ankara’s behaviour towards

Greece.2 Greek Defense Minister Nikos Panag-

iotopoulos recently described military ties with the US

as being at an “all-time high”, adding that the US and

Greece will likely update a bilateral security agreement

this summer. his could lead to more American mili-

tary missions in the region.3 Biden recognized the Ar-

menian genocide of 1915 and delayed calling Turkish

president Erdogan until late April; on June 14th the

two leaders will meet to “discuss their diferences”.4

Still, these steps fall short of a coherent policy.

US Syria policy remains under review, though ear-

ly public messages suggest focussing on cross-border

humanitarian aid. Yet as Biden ends the license for

the Delta crescent energy company in northeast Syria,

Russian energy companies are poised to gain more

control over Syrian oil. hus, the Kremlin is set to fur-

ther increase its inluence in Syria, and then, the Med-

iterranean.5 It is bad news on many fronts, including

for Syria’s humanitarian situation.

US policy on the Mediterranean and the role of PMCs

Anna Borshchevskayahe Washington Institute for Near East Policy

23

In July, the UN Security Council voted on human-

itarian aid in Syria. While the worst fears of Western

oicials did not materialize – Moscow ultimately did

not block the last remaining cross-border corridor de-

spite earlier threats to do so – the Kremlin also came out

the biggest winner. he language of the approved reso-

lution advanced Moscow’s strategic goals, while Russia

will now get an opportunity to discuss cross-border aid

again in six months. he West could not open any new

crossings while Russia got to look as if it also compro-

mised simply by not taking the most extreme position.

By comparison, engagement in Libya increased. In

May, Biden named Richard Norland, US ambassador

to Libya, as taking on an additional role as special envoy

ahead of Libya’s elections scheduled for this year’s end.

Norland for his part emphasized that “mercenaries” is

one of the problems facing Libya’s interim government.

In a recent interview, he discussed details of his contacts

with Russian oicials about the Wagner group in Libya

whom he said now acknowledge their presence; he also

stressed that Turkey is ready to negotiate the withdraw-

al of the Syrian mercenaries they sent to Libya.6 His

comments suggest an interest in seeing all para-military

forces leaving Libya. An estimated 2,000 members of

the Wagner, a Russian PMC (Private Military Compa-

ny) owned by Yeginiy Prigozhin, an oligarch close to

Putin, remain in Libya with advanced ighter aircraft in

addition to Ankara-backed ighters.

Moscow and the Mediterranean

Moscow for its part remains focused on the region.

For the irst time since 1972, Russia now has a major

military base on the Mediterranean as it continues

(militarytimes.com) https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2021/05/27/biden-ending-trump- ok-for-us-oil-company-in-syria-says-oicial/6 “Norland: Turkey is Ready to Negotiate Withdrawal of Syrian Mercenaries from Libya,” Al Marsad, April 25, 2021 https://almarsad.co/en/2021/04/25/norland-turkey-is-ready-to-negotiate-withdrawal-of-syrian-mercenaries-from-libya/7 “Russia concerned by US military buildup in Eastern Mediterranean — foreign ministry,” TASS, October 1, 2020 https://tass.com/defense/12076278 “Private Military Companies (PMCs),” Congressional Research Service, September 16 2020 https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF11650/8

to upgrade its military posture and project power. As

part of its global geopolitical eforts to reduce Amer-

ican and more broadly Western inluence, Moscow

seeks greater freedom of movement; it will continue to

look for warm water port access in Libya to bolster its

standing. Unsurprisingly, Moscow was unhappy with

the increased American presence in the Mediterranean

in late 2020, which Russian Foreign Ministry spokes-

person Maria Zakharova described as “anti-Russian

nature”.7 In the same vein, senior Russian oicials

protested US Air Force lying over the last year bomb-

er task force missions in the  high North, Baltic and

the Black Sea. In the Kremlin mind these are keep

from the Mediterranean, and that Moscow recently

deployed nuclear-capable bombers to Syria shows it

now has an extra platform it can use as both as tactical

tit for tat reaction to activity in diferent theatres, but

also on a strategic level a deterrent to NATO’s south-

ern lank, it its ability to execute strategic operations

on a regional level.

Russian PMCs and Turkey-backed ighters

PMCs have been one of Moscow’s tools in military

operations as part of strategic competition and con-

lict. Indeed, increased use of PMCs overlapped with

changes in Russian military doctrine and strategy con-

cerning the use of non-state actors in the conlict.8 Ac-

cording to a recent FMSO (Foreign Military Studies

Oice at Ft. Leavenworth) report, “PMCs can operate

across the conlict continuum and present the U.S.

Army with dilemmas at all levels of war.” he most

dangerous scenario the report identiies is in Syria,

where thanks to a high level of state support, a Russian

24 anna borshchevskaya

PMC in Syria was able to function – more or less – as

a battalion tactical group.9

PMCs also engage in a wide range of clandestine ac-

tivities. Moreover, their behaviour follows a pattern that

allows the Russian state to cement greater state inlu-

ence in a country, even as sometimes PMCs encounter

signiicant setbacks.10 Left unchecked, PMCs have the

potential to can bring the Russian government closer

to its strategic aims of securing greater access in the

9 Russian Private Military Companies: heir Use and How to Consider hem in Operations, Competition, and Conlict (Asymmetric Warfare Group), Foreign Military Studies Oice, US Army, April 2020

https://community.apan.org/wg/tradoc-g2/fmso/p/fmso-bookshelf10 Anna Borshchevskaya, “he Role of Russian Private Military Contractors in Africa,” Foreign Policy Research Institute

(FPRI), August 2020. https://www.fpri.org/article/2020/08/the-role-of-russian-private-military-contractors-in-africa/11 For a detailed discussion on PMC deinition, see the Kimberly Marten, “Russia’s use of semi-state security forces: the

case of the Wagner Group,” Post-Soviet Afairs, March 26, 2019 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1060586X.2019.1591142

Mediterranean by operating under the radar to avoid

provoking a response and then presenting the West a

fait accompli.

In the West, the debate about the deinition of PMCs

is ongoing.11 his ongoing debate complicates the for-

mulation of a clear-cut approach in how to address them.

To date, sanctions have been one tool (i.e. US Treasury

department has sanctioned Prigozhin in September 2019

in connection with interference in the US election and

anna borshchevskaya 25

1 – The imagery details the extent of equipment being supplied to Wagner. Russian military cargo aircraft, including IL-76s, continue to supply Wagner ighters. Russian air defense equipment, including SA-22s, are present in Libya and preoperated by Russia, the Wagner Group or their proxies. Photo by U.S. Africa Command Public Afairs.

further sanctioned him in April 2021 in connection

with his malign Africa activities).12 However, sanctions

targeted Prigozhin’s acts, not because he operates a PMC.

Exposure to malign PMC activities has been another in-

strument. Last year U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM)

increased publicity of Russian PMC activities in Libya.

For example, it released imagery of deployment of at

least 14 combat aircraft from Russian and Syrian bases to

Libya’s Al Khadhim and Al Jufra airbases.13 Yet it remains

unclear whether the US and the West more broadly has

a plan to impose suicient costs and raises risks for Mos-

cow to continue using them.

Turkey does not appear to copy the Russian PMC

model, but Ankara also has used foreign ighters. Last

year, U.S. Defense Department’s inspector general con-

cluded that Ankara sent 3,500-3,800 paid Syrian ighters

into Libya. It is noteworthy that most recently the Turk-

ish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said that it has

a bilateral agreement with the internationally-recognized

Libyan government (Tripoli-based Government of Na-

tional Accord - GNA). his agreement covers military

training and support. Ankara agrees “mercenaries” should

leave Libya. Indeed, Turkish elements are in Libya on

an oicial invitation of the Libyan government, unlike

Russian PMCs.14 While technically true, there is a hint

of irony to this as the Russian government claimed the

same legality of state presence in Syria. Regardless neither

12 Treasury Targets Assets of Russian Financier who Attempted to Inluence 2018 U.S. Elections | U.S. Department of the Treasury https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sm787

Treasury Escalates Sanctions Against the Russian Government’s Attempts to Inluence U.S. Elections https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy0126e Russian Government’s Attempts to Inluence U.S. Elections | U.S. Department of the Treasury13 “Russia deploys military ighter aircraft to Libya,” May 20202 https://www.africom.mil/pressrelease/32887/russia-deploys-military-ighter-aircraft-to-l “Russian aircraft active in Libya, AFRICOM says,” Reuters, June 18, 2020. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-libya-security/russian-aircraft-active-in-libya-africom-says-idUSKBN23P2RA14 “Turkey says mercenaries should leave Libya, but it has military pact with government,” Reuters, May 6, 2021 https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/turkey-says-foreign-mercenaries-should-leave-libya-it-has-accord-with-

libyan-2021-05-06/ Isabel Debre, “Pentagon report: Turkey sent up to 3,800 ighters to Libya,” Apnews.com, July 17, 2020 https://apnews.

com/article/c339f71bf029f36b1091ee31c9f0171a15 Franco Ordoñez,“Biden’s Russia Policy Is Complicated By Domestic Pressures,” NPR, May 21, 2020, https://www.npr.

org/2021/05/21/999196021/biden-wants-a-stable-predictable-relationship-with-russia-thats-complicated

Turkey nor Russia will bring stability to Libya, there is no

substitute for American leadership here.

Conclusion

Although Biden routinely criticizes Putin, he ultimate-

ly aims for a “stable and predictable” relationship with

him,15 so he can focus more on China. It looks like the

Russian President has a diferent vision. Indeed, he is not

searching for stability. Kremlin interests do not align with

those of the West. Most signiicantly, Biden recent deci-

sion to waive sanctions on Nordstream 2 and Putin main

geopolitical project in Europe reduces Western leverage

over Russia. Indeed, Putin gloated at the annual St.

Petersburg Economic Forum in June that Ukraine will

have to show “goodwill” if it wants Russian gas transit.

Nordstream2 will give Russia more inluence in Europe

and, therefore, the Mediterranean. In the absence of an

efective American leadership in this region, backed by a

credible threat of use of military force, when necessary,

Moscow could ill the vacuum and in time establish a na-

val base in Benghazi or an airbase in Tobruk, which will

help Moscow expand further not only into the Middle

East but also Africa while gaining greater leverage over

Europe. Biden may not see Russia as the top priority but

Putin sees the US as such, and his ongoing enhancement

of Russian military posture in the Mediterranean is ulti-

mately about eroding US global inluence.

26 anna borshchevskaya

The spread of COVID-19 has been widely

under control within the People’s Republic

of China (PRC) for over a year. On June

12, the PRC reported 34 new COVID-19 infections.

About 20 million people get vaccinated in China per

day, equating to roughly two-thirds of all global shots

administered. he last time someone reportedly died

from or with the coronavirus in China was on May

1, 20211. Few would have predicted this outcome in

January 2020, when hospitals in Wuhan were at the

brink of collapse.

Despite originating from China, Beijing has

dealt with COVID-19 as a foreign issue for over

a year. Measures within the PRC remain strict, and

obstacles for entering2 remain high. While the PRC

received foreign aid from at least 58 states3 in early

2020, it quickly became the world’s primary supplier

for COVID-19 relief. When the WHO declared a

pandemic on March 11, 20204, the spread of the virus

was already under control in China.

Since then, Beijing has been engaging in widespread

health diplomacy. China aims to promote the image of

China as a “responsible great power” and consequently

Western states (in particular the US) as powers in

decline that are unable to provide solutions for

complex international afairs.

1 Relevant data can be found here: https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html2 https://www.china-brieing.com/news/how-can-foreigners-enter-china-under-the-covid-19-travel-restrictions/3 https://www.swp-berlin.org/ileadmin/contents/products/comments/2021C09_ChinaHealthDiplomacy.pdf4 https://www.who.int/director-general/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-opening-remarks-at-the-media-brieing-on-

covid-19---11-march-20205 http://bw.china-embassy.org/eng/xwdt/t1798588.htm6 https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/wjb_663304/zwjg_665342/zwbd_665378/t1821356.shtml

he pandemic has boosted the ambitions of China

to new heights. Beijing’s “mask and vaccine diplomacy”

rely primarily on (1) streamlined international

propaganda, (2) strategic deliveries, and (3) promises

of post-pandemic economic recovery.

Propaganda

China’s health diplomacy propaganda eforts are

coordinated and follow a consistent narrative: he

West has failed the developing world. he PRC is

ready to take on the responsibility. he PRC provides

solutions in the ight against the pandemic. he West

(in particular the US and Europe) is unable to ofer

solutions to complex international challenges.

Beijing quickly understood the importance of

perspectives in its health diplomacy. Chinese embassies

all over the world have been tweeting daily about

China’s COVID-19 relief eforts. Even small deliveries

provide an opportunity for photo ops with the

Health Ministers of the recipient country. President

Xi Jinping’s wife, the singer and WHO special envoy

Peng Liyuan, has led several online ceremonies to mark

Chinese assistance. She has also personally donated5

protective masks to African countries.

Chinese ambassadors have been writing op-eds6

in newspapers of their host country, in which they

Masks, vaccines, and investment promises – he geopolitics of China’s COVID-19 Health Diplomacy in the MENA region

Moritz RudolfStiftung Wissenschaft und Politik

German Institute for International and Security Afairs

27

promote China’s aid and bilateral cooperation during

the pandemic.

At the same time, Chinese media outlets have

pushed7 stories to raise doubts about the safety of

Western vaccine candidates and Western failures to

share medical equipment with other (developing)

states.

Strategic deliveries

here are only a few countries that did not receive

COVID-19 relief from China in 2020. Aid originated

from various actors in China (the Central State,

Provinces, Municipalities, the People’s Liberation

Army, the Chinese Communist Party, state-owned

enterprises, the Jack Ma and Alibaba Foundation, and

Chinese ‘NGOs’).

Donations often mirror the strategic interests8 of

the PRC. For instance, majoritarian Muslim countries

(such as Afghanistan, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, and

Jordan) received mask donations from the Xinjiang

Autonomous Region. hese donations underline

Beijing’s eforts to establish friendly relations with

Muslim countries to avoid criticism of its human

rights record (for instance, within the UN Human

Rights Council). While Western democracies

criticize China for its treatment of Xinjiang’s Uighur

population, governments of Middle Eastern states

voice few concerns (but rather praise) regarding

China’s treatment of the Uighurs.

In countries where Chinese state-owned enterprises

run BRI projects (for instance in Africa), donors

included relevant banks, construction companies,

and raw material companies. he telecoms company

Huawei preferentially gave support to countries

in which it was pursuing strategic interests in the

5G expansion: in Europe, these included the Czech

7 http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2021-01/20/c_139684599.htm8 https://www.swp-berlin.org/ileadmin/contents/products/comments/2021C09_ChinaHealthDiplomacy.pdf9 http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2020-05/18/c_139067018.htm10 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-56661303

Republic, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, the Netherlands,

Poland, Romania, Serbia, and Spain.

In May 2020, at the WHO Assembly, President Xi

Jinping pledged to provide vaccines as a “global public

good”9 to the world. Yet, the majority of Chinese

vaccine deliveries relect the strategic interests of the

PRC.

For instance, El Salvador (which in 2018 had

switched diplomatic relations from Taiwan to the

PRC) has received preferential treatment from Beijing

in vaccine deliveries. It has the highest vaccination rate

in Central America (as of June 11, 36 per cent of the

population have received at least one shot). Neighboring

Guatemala, which has not (yet) established diplomatic

relations with Mainland China, has a vaccination rate

of just 4 per cent (as of June 11, 2021).

he PRC’s vaccination deliveries to South America

have been so successful that they have triggered a

political debate within Paraguay,10 whether to switch

diplomatic relations just for vaccine access. Paraguay

borders countries have all received vaccines from

China and have much higher vaccination rates.

Other countries, which struck deals with China

(e.g., Morocco, Hungary, Serbia, Turkey, Cambodia,

Mongolia, or Zimbabwe) have emerged as regional

vaccine champions, far outperforming their

neighbours.

In the MENA region, Chinese vaccine makers

have struck deals with Turkey (Sinovac, 100 million

doses), Egypt (Sinovac, 40 million doses; Sinopharm,

20 million doses), Morocco (Sinopharm, 41 million

doses), and Albania (Sinovac, 1 million doses).

In addition, the Egyptian company VACSERA

has entered into manufacturing agreements with

Sinopharm and Sinovac, turning the country into a

regional vaccine production hub.

28 moritz rudolf

Also, China has become the global leader in vaccine

donations.11 Until late May 2021, it had donated

around 15.1 million doses, about 56 per cent of all

donated doses worldwide. However, this constitutes

less than the number of vaccines the PRC administers

to its population per day. It underlines the fact that,

so far, merely 0.1 per cent of all delivered doses have

been donations. here has been a signiicant lack of

international solidarity. It has, therefore (until the

recent pledges by Western democracies), been easy for

Beijing to push the narrative of China as a “responsible

great power”.

Also, Chinese donations are often tied to vaccine

deals of higher quantities. For instance, Zimbabwe

received 400.000 doses as donations and bought over

11 https://www.unicef.org/supply/covid-19-vaccine-market-dashboard

2.2 million doses from Sinopharm. Mongolia signed a

deal over 2.3 million does and received 300.000 doses

as donations. Given the comparatively high price of

Chinese vaccines (between 10-40 USD per dose – in

comparison, AstraZeneca’s vaccine is being sold at

around 2-4 USD per dose), these donations should be

considered hardly charitable.

Most vaccine donations were delivered to states

bordering China (e.g. Cambodia, Pakistan, Laos,

Philippines, Nepal). In the MENA region, Egypt has

been the top recipient of Chinese vaccine donations

with 600.000 doses. In international comparison,

Egypt ranks sixth overall. Other countries in the

region, China has donated vaccines to, include: Syria

moritz rudolf 29

1 – The underlying data were collected by Moritz Rudolf, Nadine Godehardt, Jonathan Lehrer, and Andrea Frenzel. Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, 2021.

(150.000), Tunisia (100.000), West Bank and Gaza

(100.000), Lebanon 50.000 and Montenegro 30.000.

Connecting Health Diplomacy with the promise of

post-pandemic recovery

Since as early as June 2020,12 the Chinese leadership

has utilized its network of regional “China+x

mechanisms‘“(e.g., with countries from the ASEAN,

Africa (FOCAC), Central and Eastern Europe (17+1),

or the Arab League) to host conferences on combatting

COVID-19. During these events, China, on the one

hand, pledged priority access to Chinese vaccines. On

the other hand, Beijing has promised measures for

post-pandemic economic recovery.

China’s focus on emerging COVID-related

economic challenges for developing states might

play out to its advantage, as most Western states still

primarily focus on containing the virus within their

borders. his aspect of China’s health diplomacy

remains the most abstract and least recognized in

Europe but potentially the most impactful one from a

geopolitical perspective.

For instance, Beijing has promised signiicant

economic support, debt relief, and investments to

regions of increasing geopolitical signiicance for

China, in general, and within the Belt and Road

Initiative in particular (e.g., Africa, Oceania, Latin

America, and Southeast Asia).

Looking at the MENA Region, the PRC has

promised post-COVID investments within the 17+1

forum, FOCAC, and China’s cooperation forum with

the Arab League. Of particular signiicance for Beijing,

thereby remain the states of the Western Balkan and

(most of all) Egypt.

Outlook

It is too early to conclude whether China’s health

diplomacy has been beneicial to Beijing from a

geopolitical standpoint. However, China is clearly in a

12 http://www.focac.org/eng/ttxxsy/t1790867.htm

front-runner position as it has been engaging in health

diplomacy since February 2020. he lack of leadership

and solidarity by traditional aid providers during the

irst 15 months of the pandemic has enabled China’s

health diplomacy to gain traction.

China’s health diplomacy did not succeed in Europe

and the US (other issues such as Xinjiang, Taiwan,

Hong Kong, or sanctions against European academics

and politicians dominate the China discourse).

However, it is crucial to underline that Western states

are not the prime target for China’s health diplomacy

in the irst place.

China’s health diplomacy focuses primarily on

developing countries. In developing states, China’s

health diplomacy has been more successful. he West

often narrow focus on the qualitative defects of Chinese

aid fails to recognize that Beijing has supported many

of those states efectively and extensively.

Despite its relevant role within the BRI, the MENA

region was not the main target of China’s donations

and propaganda eforts. Nevertheless, China’s eforts

in the region were comprehensive. Besides, the

MENA region (as of June 14, 2021) is one of the most

important markets for Chinese vaccine manufacturers

(the top market for Sinopharm, and a signiicant

market for Sinovac). It is in particular Egypt which

stands out. For several years, Egypt has developed into

a crucial partner for Beijing to promote the BRI (e.g.

by ofering to serve as a hub within the ‘Digital Silk

Road’). Not surprisingly, it is also the hub for China’s

health diplomacy eforts in the MENA region.

While COVID-19 has not led to new trends of

China’s diplomatic eforts in the MENA region, it has

rather served as an accelerator.

It is questionable whether the recent pledges

of the G-7 to provide 1 billion vaccine doses to

developing countries will cause a signiicant shift of

the international COVID-19 narrative. he US has

not been showing evident international solidarity

30 moritz rudolf

during the irst 15 months of the pandemic. In

particular, the Trump administration produced several

negative headlines (e.g., seizing 20 ventilators bound

to Barbados13). he US and European states now have

an opportunity to engage in widespread strategic and

coordinated aid eforts to catch up and to regain trust.

It will be interesting to watch whether Beijing

will increase its pledge to vaccine donations as well.

he PRC will continue a multi-level approach.

Accordingly, Beijing will act bi- and multilaterally

at the same point in time. China will continue

13 https://barbadostoday.bb/2020/04/05/ventilators-destined-for-barbados-seized-by-u-s/14 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-57135368

to promote COVAX and is likely to expand its

commitment since the domestic situation in India

hinders Delhi14 from further engaging. In addition,

China will continue to engage bilaterally and within

its regional China+x formats.

In Europe, the geopolitical implications of the

pandemic would irst need to be recognized. Speciic

coordinated and long-term focused proposals for

third countries for the post-pandemic period would

be necessary. Given China’s larger footprint, this is in

particular true for the MENA region.

moritz rudolf 31

The Mediterranean, a celebrated cradle of civil-

isation, is both an old and a new geopolitical

frontier. It is also true from an energy point

of view. he basin hosts traditional and new sources of

energy and has potential for innovative ones. he evo-

lution in the making adds on top of existing rivalries for

controlling energy production and exportation – but as

hydrocarbons mix with electrons, this new landscape

may also mean new solutions to related challenges.

Riding the waves of the energy transition

Interest in the Mediterranean peaked in the last de-

cade, after major discoveries in its eastern portion. Gi-

ant gas ields have been encountered in waters ofshore

Israel, Cyprus, and Egypt. Further interesting indings

have followed – even in more recent months, i.e. in

Egypt.

he large availability of resources next to existing

export infrastructures and large European consumer

markets represented a plus in attracting investments.

It had efects also on previously neglected ields. hese

advantages were becoming more important, for the

decarbonisation imperative suggested having more gas

assets for a balanced portfolio.

he COVID-19 pandemic partially disrupted this

trend. he drive to traditional sources had to take eco-

nomics more and more into consideration while also

adding more urgency on the green side of energy.

Some exploration is now about to restart. Priority is

assigned to projects with shorter monetization times and

less exposed to higher risks. he Mediterranean, where

existing infrastructure allows for allocating costs among

several productions, will remain key, as it is increasingly

diicult to sanction new major projects while we still

he New Mediterranean Great Game: geo-energy and geo-economic challenges in the basin

Mr. Marco PireddaHead of Eni Political Scenarios and Institutional Support for Business Development

MENA, Americas and Asia Paciic

1 – Mediterranean oil and gas reserves (source: World Oil and Gas Review, 2020)

33

experience further pandemic waves. Having shorter

pathways from ields to onshore facilities to markets is a

further plus in these uncertain times.

A second fact – and soon an engine for geo-eco-

nomic change – is the growth of local consumption of

traditional and new energies. Demographics and a less-

er energy-intensive Europe are the main drivers behind

this shift.

he gas produced in the Mediterranean basin will

growingly be designed to meet domestic needs on its

34 marco piredda

2 – Population, GDP growth and energy demand patterns in the Med (sources: OME, UNWPP, IMF)

3 – Egypt’s gas output and LNG exports (source: MEES)

southern shore, in Egypt in particular. Surpluses will

then be transported via LNG to Asia where demand

is also growing; Europe will remain a premium market

but will continue experiencing a diminishing demand,

although a harsh winter may still refute this trend – as it

happened during 2020. Europe will continue pushing

in this direction, for it sees this as an opportunity to

reduce external dependency and associated costs.

Up until here, the scenario we are describing is that of

a certain future. Ahead of this, it will be mandatory to

plan where to allocate production beyond what domes-

tic markets will initially absorb. his is where the new

paradigm will show its efects and force Mediterranean

players to adapt. Gas and electricity will be the means

to implement a more collaborative transition and move

forward together.

he sharp acceleration in the energy transition pro-

cess altered the previous balance. Its fast pace increas-

ingly curbs conventional resources for the beneit of

new ones, also in policy and planning terms. In the

medium term, the foreseeable energy mix will still be

ensured by traditional sources along with renewables.

Changes in the regulation and a still partly unclear

technological evolution will be the main forces rede-

signing the sector.

Consequences will go beyond the pandemic. At this

moment, regulatory levers diminish predictability on

the demand side – about what types of energy will be

demanded or will be allowed in the future. his is a new

element to take into consideration.

he electriication of a large part of the energy system

would also bring more complexity to systems. Many lo-

cal actors will be energy producers and consumers at the

same time. It will be necessary to think more locally as

more decentralised systems will arise. Large-scale infra-

structure will still be relevant along with smaller assets

(i.e. the Tunisia-Italy cable or the planned Euro-Asia

interconnector to link Greece to Cyprus and Israel) to

help keep the system in balance. Overall, this situation

will not be a mere replacement of conventional sources

with cleaner ones, but rather the progressive creation

of a new system where economic actors combine new

resources in an eicient way, also choosing which infra-

structural backbones to prioritise.

Geo-economics of Mediterranean energies

In energy terms, the decade that has just begun has been

deined as a “make-or-break” decade in which to act ef-

fectively on the transition to avoid climate change. he

next ten years will be crucial in coordinating the eforts

across the Basin through partnerships increasingly fo-

cused on renewable energies. 

he European Union is driving the process, trying to

combine leadership in climate policies with the trans-

formation and the relaunching of its industrial capacity

and thus the consolidation of its geopolitical role. Chi-

na is following on the same path, building on Europe’s

long-lasting experience.

Each Government tries to be a ‘winner’ of this pro-

cess, remaining abreast of innovation, advancing ade-

quate regulatory frames, and dodging sustainability re-

quirements to ensure traditional productions are more

eicient and go along with the latest environmental and

social constraints. Countries that would not – or could

not – invest in this direction could face higher costs and

loss of competitiveness in the medium term.

marco piredda 35

4 – EU 27 Total primary energy demand mix (source: IHS)

Geo-economics change accordingly. Foreign relations

have been eventful and concurred to shape the energy

sector in the Basin, especially in its Eastern part. Ze-

ro-sum (or even negative-sum) games have characterised

exploration in Cyprus’ ofshore areas claimed by Turkey.

Foreign and security policy remains a dominant driver,

but market and pro-market dynamics are gaining speed.

he need to mitigate inherent risks and to be attrac-

tive to international players seems a powerful drive.

Financial markets are increasingly moving towards

more sustainable investment, and it is hence even more

imperative to meet their demands. While Turkey is still

assessing its Black Sea gas discoveries, in 2021, Ankara

reached out a friendlier hand to Egypt. Cairo recipro-

cated by calling for new ofshore exploration rounds

that take current Turkish claims in the Mediterranean

into account. A constructive approach may follow: to

uphold its role as an energy hub in the East Mediter-

ranean, Ankara needs to downplay anti-Turkish senti-

ments in the region anyway.

Moreover, following the Abraham Accords, Israel

and the UAE have also signed of a strategic coopera-

tion agreement for developing renewable projects. his

bilateral energy diplomacy may have a side efect on

Egypt, but Israel paid due attention not to neglect that

partnership too. Indeed, Israeli gas exports are lowing

through Egypt and discussions about linking Israeli ields

to Egyptian infrastructures are still ongoing. In parallel,

the Israeli-Jordan relation is being enriched by an energy

agreement where Israeli gas is vital for the Jordan energy

mix. Israel helped Amman by ensuring a baseload of safe

energy supply, increasing its renewable energy quota.

Also, in this way, Israeli productions ind a market, avoid-

ing the fate other ofshore ields have endured.

6 – Algeria-Tunisia-Libya electricity interconnections; planned 400 kV route is estimated (source: MEES)

36 marco piredda

5 – Energy transition as a competitive advantage (source: World Economic Forum)

Further, through its national corporation for electric-

ity and gas (Sonelgaz), Algeria is about to supply elec-

tricity to Western Libya. his irst-of-its-kind project,

if implemented, sees electrons being directly ushered

into bilateral talks between Northern African countries,

along with relevant political interest.

Point to point connections already existed in the past,

their motives being mainly restricted to energy balances

between Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya. For the irst time,

the energy exchange is directly sought between two

major players. As in other infrastructure projects, Euro-

pean support and regulatory policy will be decisive, also

in connection with the launch of tools for cooperation

with its Mediterranean neighbourhood, such as NDICI

(Neighbourhood, Development, International Cooper-

ation Instrument).

Libya is keen to develop a robust renewable and clean

power generation of its own; Tripoli is proposing these

opportunities to a plethora of potential foreign inves-

tors: European partners are on the top of the list from

a technology point of view, but US companies remain

among the most important for what concerns new in-

vestment opportunities. Keeping the political transition

on track is directly connected to the growing interest

in traditional and renewable energies that Libyan ex-

ecutives try to encourage. Tripoli aims at developing

existing production and recover lost time, enhance local

consumption, exchange among the Basin’s southern

shore countries and soon be a new featured supplier to

the northern shore of the Mediterranean. he NOC

(National Oil Corporation) is the epicentre of this deli-

cate shift that goes beyond renewables.

Not all that glitters is gold. Algeria is embroiled also

in talks with Morocco over contract renewal for gas

transported through the GME to Spain and Portugal.

Bilateral tensions make for a more diicult negotia-

tion, though it will be expedient for all sides to reach

an extension. Gas is partially of taken by Morocco to

power its power plants in the North, and a positive

attitude could prevail. In 2019, the newly upgraded

Algeria-Spain Medgaz pipeline had carried the highest

low of Algerian gas to Europe.

7 – Algeria, electric generation mix (TWh) (source: Wood Machenzie)

Competition between the two Maghrebi players is

also on renewables. he pandemic and a more stringent

socio-economic environment afected investment plans

of state-owned entities and forced Morocco to slow down

on its celebrated – but expensive – solar lagship projects

and on green hydrogen pilot plant to be developed with

Germany. Algeria bets on a relaunch of its energy sector

that goes beyond traditional resources to bring solar and

new energies online, while the existing pipeline network

to Europe might be used also for transporting low-car-

bon gas. Italy and Germany are among the key partners

in this efort; Turkey is also present and ofers to go be-

yond current upstream talks and purchases of LNG to

help Algeria with its expertise in renewables.

As it is evident, especially when innovative sources

of energy are taken into consideration, we are talking

about regional players. Governments and NOCs are

called upon to play a major role also in place of some

traditional great players who have a more traditional

approach to their portfolios.

he US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate

(John Kerry), recently appointed, has entered the

scene with the onset of the Biden Administration. his

approach might hence change, and it is possible that

while European companies will be more focused on a

marco piredda 37

customer-centric approach, US majors will position

themselves on new businesses without losing the grip

on conventional ones, to fulil the new green imperative

developing in Washington, for example on Hydrogen

and CCUS (Carbon Capture Utilisation and Storage).

A more proactive stance across all the Mediterranean

may soon follow. For example, CCUS initiatives have

strong synergies with upstream and power or industri-

al sector capacity. A change in the US position could

also divert some attention away from traditional energy

sources in favour of more innovative ones.

China monitors these developments from afar. he

US has stopped a deal in the Sorek 2 Israeli desalinisa-

tion plant where Chinese companies were to take part.

Although Beijing has become a preferred destination of

Gulf oil lows, its energy security would not depend on

any signiicant event occurring in the Mediterranean. It

is rather the other way around: despite some shine be-

ing taken of the Belt and Road Initiative, many Med-

iterranean Governments still attach great importance

to China, for example letting Chinese investors enter

seaport infrastructures and operatorship (i.e. in Haifa,

though in a non-strategic section of the asset; Chinese

companies also will build an FSRU in Cyprus, together

with Greek counterparts).

he US remain concerned about this trend. Econom-

ic issues will continue to afect most of the region and

may increase intraregional rivalries on energy projects. In

particular, those rivalries associated with more innovative

technological solutions. Over time, China has become

a world champion in the production and export for ex-

ample of certain components of solar panels and Beijing

remains a key partner in the region. he US would con-

tinue to pursue more balanced commercial partnerships,

also encouraging technological agreements with other

global players such as India, Japan or South Korea.

Russian companies it in this dynamic and will re-

main a partner for investments, not only in Syria and

Lebanon but also where Russia already has good politi-

cal and military relations, such as in Egypt, Algeria and

Libya. Among their main objectives is to remain global

energy players.

8 – Producing countries and oil rent as percentage of GDP (sources: FT; World Bank)

38 marco piredda

More collaborative partnerships can be developed

he control of energy has long been associated with

political tensions. Being at the crossroad of many

interests, the Mediterranean provided many examples in

this direction. he Med basin has also been a paradigm

of the competition for resources and the resulting age-

old adage of ‘all wars having an inner motive in an

energy-related motive’.

However, the sector is rarely the root cause of rivalries.

Often, these causes lie in an economic or ideological

sphere, and energy merely becomes the ground where

these reduce tensions. Yet, volatility and fragmenta-

tion increase costs and risks of unfavourable scenarios

developing.

Problems may be solved by mechanisms to encour-

age international and intergovernmental organisations,

pool infrastructures and lay a common regulatory

framework. he pandemic already took a toll on the

sector and its supply chain. It clearly showed the limits

of an ungoverned process.

Interdependence even among rivals is a distinctive

feature of many energy projects. herefore, energy is a

tool to mediate difering interests. With the transition,

this dynamic could become more evident and evolve

towards higher infrastructural and inancial intercon-

nections. Should these partnerships be pursued, they

could help diminish challenges that have slowed or

prevented the Mediterranean from tapping into its

vast potential.

his is not to downplay future challenges. New

players are arising, namely, those who are in control

of technologies, materials and future chokepoints –

increasingly taking the shape of a powerline or of an

optic-ibre cable rather than that of a sea canal or a gas

pipeline. Given the importance of the oil revenue for

existing economies, it is also crucial that Mediterranean

countries adjust their budget reallocation schemes and

harmonise them to new social models and new market

realities.

he narrative of the transition tends to overlook

these factors; still, they risk creating instability. Coun-

tries may become more independent than under the

previous economic model, yet these constraints carry

the risk of new forms of dependence.

Taking these variables into account is important so

as not to be trapped in ‘old’ dynamics while realities

shift on the ground. Some of the bilateral or regional

agreements hitherto described already carry a positive

messages: that resources can be pooled; that infrastruc-

tures can be connected; that investments can be attract-

ed; that energy self-suiciency is at hand for many local

communities; that transition is an achievable must;

that main European and Asian markets can easily be

reached; that local markets can be governed.

Huge resources, careful policy planning and more

cooperation are needed to fulil all these promises and

deliver on the challenges of a just transition, a process

that will not happen overnight. Given that the envi-

ronment and the climate change are becoming by far

a priority in the policy agenda, putting them on the

higher level will also ease and lessen energy policy and

economic conlicts downhill.

marco piredda 39

As a journalist, Turkish police arrested me in

Diyarbakir, Turkey’s south-eastern region

mainly populated by Kurds. It happened

in 2012. At that time, more than 700 Kurdish inmates

began a hunger strike in the local prison, sadly known

as the “Hell of Diyarbakir”, one of the ten worst prisons

in the world.

hey were protesting against the condition of the

prisons, tortures, the detention of the PKK leader

Abdullah Ocalan, and for the rights of Kurds, continu-

ally violated and disregarded (e.g. the Kurdish language,

which was forbidden by the Turkish government).

Several hundreds of Kurds lew the streets of the old city

to demonstrate support to the inmates, facing heavy

weaponed Turkish soldiers, tanks, water cannons, tear

gas, and rubber bullets.

he Turkish police arrested me at the exact moment

while I was going to the demonstrate in a taxi, with

other French colleagues, although we were far from the

prison and the clashes. Turkish oicers halted the car

and asked us to go out, irst quietly, then the policemen

suddenly dragged us brutally to the barrack, then, they

separated woman from the man in two diferent groups.

here, they impeded us to call anyone, despite the

fact we were foreigners and journalists. One of the po-

licemen threw my press card on my face, while the other

ones dismounted our devices and cameras, checking

what we had shouted. I was able to call a friend, hiding

my black earphones behind my hair, pretending to speak

with a colleague who seated beside me. hankfully, my

friend alarmed the Italian Consulate in Istanbul, and

after 7 hours, they let us go.

Our Kurd interpreter was the irst separated from our

group and beat in front of our eyes. Finally, we were

lucky. If the Middle Eastern countries are amongst the

highest jailers of journalists in 2020, Turkey is the sec-

ond country after China for arresting and censoring the

press. But I consider the Kurdish issue the most cen-

sured one.

According to the annual global survey of the

Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), after China

with 117 reporters in jail, in 2020 Turkey has jailed 37

journalists, less than half of the number of journalists

arrested in 2016, after the failed coup attempt, with a

surge in arrests.

hree journalists arrested in 2020 are pro-Kurdish,

from Mesopotamia News Agency, which reported a sto-

ry of torture by Turkish military personnel against two

Kurdish farmers thrown down from a helicopter.

Most of the 387 reporters jailed in 2020 have been

arrested in Turkey, Egypt (30), Saudi Arabia (34), and

Syria (27). Moreover, also the number of women jour-

nalists arrested increased by 35% in 2020.

Iran is the sixth-highest country where journalists are

persecuted, with one of the worst censorships, ranked

174th for RSF index with 15 arrests in 2020. But since

Information in retreat, from peaceful and war zones

Annamaria EspositoForeign reporter and Head of service at Rainews24 – Rai Television

1– Ruhollah Zam in the Supreme Court in Teheran, convicted to death for incitement to protest before the demostrations in Iran in 2017. He was executed in 12 December 2020 by hanging. He was 42.

41

the beginning of the Islamic revolution, the Iranian re-

gime has executed 50 journalists.

On December 12, 2020, the Iranian authorities ex-

ecuted1 one of them, Roohollah Zam,2 on 17 charges,

including espionage, spreading false news abroad, and

insulting Islamic values and, last but not least, the su-

preme leader.

Because of the Zam website and Telegram channel,

Amad News had criticised the Iranian oicials and post-

ed the timings and locations of protests in 2017. He was

1 https://cpj.org/2020/12/cpj-condemns-irans-execution-of-journalist-roohollah-zam/2 https://cpj.org/data/people/roohollah-zam/

detained in 2019 in Baghdad, Iraq, and then taken to

Iran, where the Teheran regime sentenced him to death.

Alleged fake news against the government is one

of the main motivations to be arrested in the Islamic

Republic. Also, in Iran, satire is forbidden and risky as

well. And is not isolated between the countries where

the dictatorship is in power. A perfect example is the

story of Hamid Haghjoo.

he man in the photo is a cinematographer, an ani-

mation director, a designer, a creative, also awarded in

Italy in the World Animation Film Festival in Milan.

His talent and career are well known in the American

and British virtual games industry. Born in Bushehr,

on April 27, 1989, which is sadly mostly known for

the nuclear plant and the troubled inspections of the

IAEA, (International Atomic and Energy Agency of the

United Nations). Also, Bushehr is an old, historic city

on the sea. It’s the most important Iranian harbour on

the Persian Gulf. It is a crossroads of inluences. I like

to imagine how the talented mind of Hamid grew up

and bloomed despite the darkness of the regime. On

the eve of his 31st birthday, Hamid was arrested, after

publishing a cartoon in which he represented Iranian

clerics while recommending traditional remedies to

treat the virus.

Bitter humour, but fun enough to put him in a dan-

gerous situation and inally being jailed. He did not

write an article or shoot a story, but his cartoon worked

well enough to disturb the authorities in Teheran.

One of the most censored issues is the pandemic,

and Iran is the worst-hit country by the Covid 19 in

the Middle East, with over 50,000 deaths. Indeed, the

number of journalists arrested during the pandemic is

quadrupled, only from Mars to May 2020 while bring-

ing out the truth. he repression was always motivated

by the censorship over the information regarding the

coronavirus.

42 anna maria esposito

2 – Ruhollah Zam was the founder of the channel Amad News. He was arrested and convicted to death in 2019 after he came back from Paris, where he was welcomed as a refugee.

3 – Hamid is a wellnoun and talented journalist and ilmaker. He is in jail because of posting a cartoon on his Telegram Channel ILNA (Iranian Labor News Agency) about the country’s leaders handling of Covid-19 in Iran.

Also, in this pandemic time, the MENA region

remains one of the worst places for Media freedom.

Governments of authoritarian countries have increased

their control over the press, especially in Covid-19

times. Nine of them are in the bottom tenth in the rank-

ings of the annual index reviews for the press freedom

situation in 180 countries and territories (by Reporters

sans frontiers).

In Egypt, three journalists were arrested for reporting

over the pandemic, for criticising the lack of state media

coverage about health workers who contracted the virus.

During the Al Sisi presidency in Egypt, the number of

journalists arrested in 2020 (34) increased, if compared

to 2019 (31). here are tens of thousands of political

prisoners, with journalists and bloggers. According to

the CPJ (Committee to Protect Journalists)3.

he Egyptian authorities are not an exception.

hey charge people with the accusation of spreading

fake news to put them in jail. hat was the case with

Mohamed Monir. (image), appeared on the Al Jazeera

news channel. Egypt accuses the Al Jazeera media

network of being an echo chamber for the outlawed

Muslim Brotherhood. Monir went to the Tora Prison

for political inmates. here, he took the Covid-19 and

died in July after being released.

Egypt, ranked 166th, expelled4 a journalist from the

British newspaper he Guardian for quoting a study

that suggested that the number of Covid-19 cases in

the country was higher than the government declared.

Cairo just banned the publication of any Covid-19 sta-

tistics not provided by the Egyptian health ministry. For

this reason, the government closed thirty websites.

RSF denounced in his annual report a surge in the

censorship toward independent media and blogs. In

nearly three-quarters of the countries evaluated, it is

3 https://cpj.org/reports/2020/12/record-number-journalists-jailed-imprisoned/ @pressfreedom #pressfreedom 4 https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/coronavirus-egypt-forces-guardian-journalist-leave-country5 https://menarights.org/en/caseproile/yemeni-journalist-marwan-al-muraisy-missing-june-2018-arrest-saudi-arabia6 https://menarights.org/en/caseproile/saudi-journalist-remains-disappeared-rumours-emerge-he-was-tortured-death-de-

tention

even harder than ever for people to access exact informa-

tion and much more with the global health emergency.

After Iran, just four positions higher, at 170, is Saudi

Arabia, which had tripled the number of journalists de-

tained. In 2017, the number of detainees increased with

the arrival to power of Crown Prince Mohammed bin

Salman (MBS). In 2012, the blogger Raif Badawi, own-

er and founder of the website Free Saudi Liberals, was

arrested on charges of insulting Islam. He was sentenced

to ten years of prison and punished with one thousand

lashes. Badawi has gone on several hunger strikes in

protest against the conditions he lives in prison.

he most brutal execution remains the killing of

the journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate

in Istanbul, which is an indelible crime over the Saudi

kingdom and the Crown Prince. Mena Rights Group

denounced the missing of other journalists since their

arrestations. Marwan Al Muraisy,5 a Yemeni journalist,

is in jail since June 2018. Turki Al Jasser,6 arrested from

his home in Riyadh on March 15, 2018, and probably

anna maria esposito 43

5 – The saudi blogger Raif Badawi sentenced to 10 years in prison, in isolation, and to 1000 lashes. He was brought to the city center of Geddah and lashed. Raif Badawi is the founder of Free Saudi Liberals Blog. He has a wife and three sons. He won the Sacharov Prize, he is still in jail because of he treated on his blog political and religius issues.

died in prison after being tortured. In February 2019,

the Jordanian journalist Abdelrahman Farhaneh7 was

arrested while he was travelling to Dammam airport by

the Saudi State Security Service.

Among diferent forms of torture, journalists

detained are prevented from providing information

to their families or lawyers. It is two-fold punishment

that impacts the family as well. In Syria, at least ten

journalists died in 2018. Five of them killed in Bashar

al-Assad’s jails.

Journalists that works in these regions are posed

under threat by diferent sides. For this reason, some

journalists started to make information neutrals, a sort

of self-censorship to protect themselves and their work.

Sadly, it is a behaviour difused not only among journal-

ists who work in non-democratic countries. Indeed, we

are witnessing the same thing also among journalists in

Western democracies.

Increasingly, reporters are kidnapped. Indeed, ran-

soms are one of the most lucrative sources of money in

many parts of the world. At this moment, at least 54

journalists are being held hostage by non-state actors

(RSF). hey are all located in the Middle East region

(34 in Syria, 11 in Iraq and 9 in Yemen). Often, for

non-state actors, we mean Islamic terrorist groups such

ISIS or al-Qaeda or, generally speaking, criminal organ-

isations. hey use ransoms to inance their operations in

the area or abroad.

Islamic State uses to kidnap journalists more than

other terrorist groups. In 2020, it kidnapped 25 jour-

nalists. here are a lot of armed militant groups that

act in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. Last year, four journalists

were reported missing, including Tawik al-Tamimi, the

editor of the Iraqi newspaper Al-Sabah. Tawik disap-

peared on March 9, 2020, in Baghdad, few days after

posting his concerns on Facebook about Mazen Latif,

another writer kidnapped. al-Tamini also criticised the

economic mismanagement of the Iraqi government.

7 https://menarights.org/en/caseproile/jordanian-journalist-abdelrahman-farhaneh-disappeared-february-2019-arrest-sau-di-arabia

Since then, the al-Tamimi family did not receive any

information about him.

Ten years after the Arab Springs, media freedom in

the MENA region is worse than ever. Also, this situ-

ation resulted from the new set of rules concerning

cybercrime, fake news and hate speech. hese new legis-

lations badly restricted press and media freedom across

the region. Indeed, in 2015, the UN Human Rights

Council voiced concerns about the excessive restrictions

on freedom of expression in Kuwait (one of the least

repressive countries in the Gulf region).

In North Africa, one of the most impenetrable and

untransparent countries is Algeria. Khaled Drareni, a

Casbah Tribune reporter, was arrested on 27th March

2020, during the riots and demonstrations that over-

haul the Algiers government. he court in Algiers

sentenced Khaled to two years for inciting an unarmed

gathering and putting national unity at risk. Finally he

was released on 19th February 2021.

About 15 reporters were also arrested while covering

the protest in Algiers. Djaafer Kheloui, a reporter for

the Twala news website, was assaulted by riot police

while trying to intervene when ive policemen used

force to arrest Kenza Khattou, a young woman and col-

league who hosts the politics programmes on Radio M.

Rabah Karèche, a Liberté correspondent in

Tamanrasset, 900 km south of Algiers, was jailed on

April 19, 2020, after covering protests by the Tuareg

population of the Ahaggar region who protested

against new territorial divisions. He is facing up to ten

years in prison on charges (RSF ranked Algeria 146th

out of 180 countries).

In Tunisia, where the Arab springs started in 2011,

working conditions for journalists worsened. Hate

speech is directed against the Independent High

Authority for Broadcast Communication (HAICA) by

far-right parliamentarians, while violence against jour-

nalists and media increased. he security situation in

44 anna maria esposito

Libya is still too risky for journalists. Indeed, foreign

reporters are no longer able to visit the country to cover

the conlict. he absence of information and reports is

dangerous when waiting for the presidential elections in

December 2021 for a political transition.

RSF ranked Sudan as the lowest of MENA countries

at 175th out of 180 countries worldwide. In Sudan, an

increasing number of journalists were arrested, banned

from working, and subjected to other forms of judicial

harassment by the National Intelligence and Security

Service. It is because those reporters decided to cover

anti-government protests of December 2018, before

Bashar regime crackdown.

In the last ten years, 937 journalists have been

killed. During last year, 50 reporters died (45

professionals; 4 producers; 1 freelance). Surprisingly,

most of the journalists killed worked in non-conlict

zones (Sixty-eight per cent of them died in peaceful

areas).

Finally, there is also a creeping threat for journalism.

Increasingly, media companies and networks prevent

sending reporters to cover the events. In my opinion,

this is the main threat, especially if combined with the

increasing tendency by social media to delegitimate

the so-called old journalism. Often, media companies

decide to ill the newsfeed in a more convenient and

cheaper formula for the Publishers to manage the

Media information.

he latter threat looks like a death sentence for inde-

pendent and high-level journalism.

anna maria esposito 45

Today, much of the attention of European me-

dia and policymakers focuses on the rates of

irregular sea movements and interceptions by

the coast guards of various Mediterranean coastal States

as the main indicators of success in the management of

mixed movements of refugees and migrants towards Eu-

rope. However, by contrast, there are less research, anal-

ysis, preparedness eforts and programmatic responses

to help prevent the dangerous journeys of people from

Sub-Saharan regions to North African countries and

beyond.

I am indeed convinced that a more efective migra-

tion and asylum management depends on the quality

and the depth of engagement, as well as on the sustain-

ability of the eforts that are spent in the areas closer to

the countries of origin of migrants.

he United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

(UNHCR) and the Mixed Migration Centre (MMC)

have been recently working together to try to forecast fu-

ture irregular mixed movements towards North African

countries that may in turn inluence trends in irregular

sea movements across the Mediterranean and the West-

ern African Atlantic waters towards Europe.

Forecasting movements of migrants or asylum seek-

ers is not a perfect science and depends on accurate

analysis of rapidly changing variables, including volatile

push and pull factors that can quickly inluence trends

and risks along the routes. An efective understanding

and forecasting of trends in irregular mixed movements

require a route-based analysis and attention to the na-

tionality of who is involved.

Given the ongoing events provoking mass displace-

ment in the Sahel and in the Horn of Africa, mixed

1 4Mi - Mixed Migration Centre: https://mixedmigration.org/4mi

movements towards North Africa by land include a

larger proportion of refugees than irregular sea journeys

across the Mediterranean Sea and the North-West-Af-

rican Atlantic. Besides, the greater part of those mixed

movements take place within Sub-Saharan regions and

do not afect North Africa and Europe only: it is es-

timated that 80% of movements in West and Central

Africa take place within the same region, while irregular

sea crossings from East Africa towards Yemen are con-

stant, even as war rages in that country.

Movements towards North Africa happen both legal-

ly and irregularly depending on the routes and the na-

tionalities of the persons on the move. Data from MMC

4MI monitoring in West, Central, East and North Af-

rica, suggest that mixed movements remain the result of

diverse motivations. In fact, 52% of those interviewed

gave a combination of economic reasons coupled with

leeing violence, insecurity and lack of rights for leaving

their country.1 Livelihood concerns are also at the core

of most decision-making: we see them as a predominant

driver of migrant movements or of refugees’ secondary

movements. In short, even refugees leeing insecurity,

conlict and persecution may have other kinds of moti-

vations, including economic ones, especially when they

decide to move onwards from their country of asylum

to engage in secondary movements. Economic migrants

as well, who may have left their home country primar-

ily because of economic reasons, can become victims

of human traicking along the way, or may end up in

countries in crisis such as Libya, Mali, Ethiopia, then

being forced to lee again to ind safety.

For what concerns the 15 countries mainly linked to

the movements towards North Africa but also in North

Current drivers of mixed movements along the land routes leading to the Western and Central Mediterranean routes

Vincent CochetelSpecial Envoy for the Central & Western Mediterranean Situation

47

African countries themselves, the pandemic had a con-

tradictory impact on the mobility of people. On the one

hand, its socioeconomic impact has increased aspira-

tions and propensity to move due to a lack of prospects.

On the other, it has limited the people’s ability to move

by reducing the resources that they can invest in such

movement. “Soft” and “hard” border closures or/and

strengthened border controls (airports and land bor-

der crossings) as well as other restrictions within some

countries have also rendered mobility more diicult.

Surveys clearly show that the demand for smugglers’

services is increasing. And this makes sense if regular

mobility does become more diicult, thus immediately

leading to a visible increase in smuggling fees. Evidence

also shows that smugglers and traickers have demon-

strated once more their capacity to innovate and diver-

sify their ofers by proposing more dangerous routes.

Increased dependency on more expensive smugglers

and along more dangerous routes comes with more

vulnerability and risks for the refugees and migrants

involved.

Existing tools do not enable us to quantify precisely

the irregular mixed movements towards North Africa.

Data registered by the UNHCR only cover part of such

mixed movements (i.e. persons wanting to seek asylum

in the countries where they registered). In addition, the

temporary suspension of registration activities during

the pandemic does not enable an easy analysis. In 2020,

Tunisia was the only location in North Africa where we

saw a 68% increase in the number of asylum seekers

compared to 2019. his igure relates mainly to third

country nationals that went legally to Tunisia prior to

ending up in an irregular situation having overstayed

their 90 days permission to stay.

However, the deterioration of the security situation

in 4 of the 5 countries neighboring North African

2 For instance, the ECOWAS protocol on freedom of movement for citizens from ECOWAS countries or the various options available to Sudanese nationals in Egypt or in Sudan or South Sudanese nationals in Sudan.

3 https://reporting.unhcr.org/sites/default/files/UNHCR%20Western%20and%20Central%20Mediterranean%20Appeal%202021.pdf

countries is and will continue to lead to external dis-

placement towards North African countries. his situa-

tion is further exacerbated by an average cut of 60% in

food aid, heavily afecting refugees in these countries.

People embarking on these dangerous journeys will

not necessarily approach UNHCR Oices for a variety

of reasons: the need to focus on livelihoods to make

money to cross the sea or to send remittances back

home; the perception that registration gets you “stuck”

in North Africa without rights where growing asylum

interview backlogs are seen as push factors.

Further aield, insecurity and economic hardship in

other countries such us Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Cam-

eroon, CAR, Ethiopia, Somalia and South Sudan will

continue to generate mixed primary and secondary

movements. While only few of the IDPs in Burkina

Faso and South Sudan have left their country to seek

international protection, this may change in the future

if the security situation does not stabilize.

Moreover, the lack of research, outreach, identiication

and legal frameworks enabling the permanence in other

countries2 (ECOWAS protocol or the various options

available to South Sudanese nationals in Egypt or in Su-

dan) makes these persons invisible for the UNHCR even

if they may be in a refugee-like situation. When asked,

a Burkinabe citizen in Ivory Coast or Ghana may only

say that he/she is there to work without disclosing his/

her previous forced displacement from his/her place of

former habitual residence.

Further research is thus needed on south-south mixed

movements to quantify them and assess the protection

needs of those involved.

he percentage of migrants embarking on danger-

ous sea journeys across the Mediterranean Sea and the

North-Western African Atlantic who receive protec-

tion in Europe is around 35%3. his percentage varies

48 vincent cochetel

according to the routes and the nationalities. However,

our analysis is distorted by several factors:

• Inability for the time being of the Spanish authorities to

provide clear disaggregated data regarding sea arrivals;

• he largest groups on the Central Mediterranean route

are predominantly economic migrants: Bangladeshi

and Tunisians are the 1st and 2nd biggest group respec-

tively. he largest groups on the Western Mediterranean

route are Algerians and Moroccans, while on the NW

African maritime route, Malians and Moroccans;

• Unwillingness so far from the Moroccan and Algerian

authorities to provide access to non-nationals rescued/

intercepted at sea;

• Unwillingness so far of the Libyan authorities to autho-

rize UNHCR to work with and register more than 9

nationalities.

Irregular sea movements to Europe (14.000 CM and

WM/NW 5.000 in 2021) are currently rather small

phenomena in comparison to:

• earlier times along these Mediterranean routes;4

4 Mediterranean arrivals, by land and sea, to Italy, Greece, Spain, Cyprus, Malta (please see, Situation Mediterranean Situation (unhcr.org)

Years Arrivals

2021 (until 31 May) 28,062

2020 95,031

2019 123,663

2018 141,472

2017 185,193

2016 373,652

2015 1,032,408

2014 225,455

5 To mention a few examples, to date, over 46,000 refugees have led into Sudan since the violence began in early November 2020 in the Tigray region, in Ethiopia (please see, Document – UNHCR Ethiopia Situation (Tigray Region) Regional Update #17 – 17 May – 14 June 2021); and about 1.7 people were forcibly displaced within the region (please see, Document – UNHCR Ethiopia Tigray Situation Update 03 June 2021); In addition, the escalated violence and instability in the Sahel led to further displacement within the region. As of 31 May 2021, the region hosts 898,059 refugees and 2,292,851 IDPs (please see, Situation Sahel Crisis (unhcr.org)); he security situation in and around Nigeria, notably across the Lake Chad Basin, has remained volatile in 2021, leading to further displacement in the region and bringing the total of IDPs, as of 31 May, to 3,029,501persons (please see, Situation Nigeria Situation (unhcr.org)).

6 Between 1st January to 31st May 2021, IOM estimates over 6,000 arrivals in Yemen (please see, DTM Yemen – Flow Monitoring Dataset – May 2021 | Flow monitoring (iom.int))

7 Patterns and Current Trends in African Migration to Europe | SpringerLink

• land movements and forced displacement within

Sub-Saharan Africa;5

• sea movements in the Gulf of Aden.6

his is perhaps not always the idea we get if we follow

reporting by the media and some of the ongoing poli-

cy discussions, but in reality the numbers in question

should be very manageable for Europe, especially if we

look at them against the background of other trends in

human mobility in Europe.

In the short and mid terms, there is no data, in our

view, to suggest that the demographic pressure on the

African continent will increase cross-border mixed

movements and dangerous sea journeys towards Eu-

rope. here are many factors at play, but it is interesting

to note that the signiicant increase of population in

Africa over the past decade has not led to an increase in

the migration rate from the continent and will not lead

to a mass exodus in the future.7

Along the same lines, existing data suggest that most

of the displacement and migration due to the impact of

vincent cochetel 49

climate change and environmental shocks is short-dis-

tance (rural to rural or, increasingly, rural to urban). It

involves cross-border movements only in a few places,

within the sub-region.

Indeed, people losing their livelihoods because of the

impact of climate change cannot aford expensive cross

regional journeys. Besides, the socioeconomic conse-

quences of climate change are exacerbating already ex-

isting local conlicts linked to access to resources in some

Sahelian and in East African (grazing land, water, wood,

etc.). his leads primarily to internal displacement but,

for a small percentage, it forces external displacement to

a neighboring country as well.

Transnational traicking networks regrettably con-

tinue to enjoy quasi-total impunity along the routes.

Working on alternatives to dangerous journeys is an

imperative for all actors working with migrants/poten-

tial migrants in their country of origin as well as those

8 https://mixedmigration.org/roadmap-protection-2021/

assisting refugees in countries of irst asylum (which can

still be not secure).

Working on credible alternatives requires sustainable

eforts, which are today insuicient along key routes used

for mixed movements. Just informing people about the

dangers of certain routes cannot alone make a signiicant

diference in their decisions to move/not move irregular-

ly. Such communication programs need to be supported

by better access to education, livelihood activities, food

and non-food (cash) assistance. In parallel, the youth is

often deprioritized in humanitarian and development

responses on the assumption that the youngsters can

address their needs by themselves. he reality in many

asylum countries remains that the majority of refugees

does not have access to basic rights, including the one to

be legally employed. Only multi-year route-based eforts

in these areas may help mitigate and reduce the numbers

of people taking these dangerous journeys8.

50 vincent cochetel

An ambitious plan to produce clean

energy from the MENA (Middle East

& North Africa) region could provide

a roadmap for peace in Libya. he main obstacles

remain politics and geopolitical constraints. Yet, in a

world threatened by the collapse of natural ecosystems

and unrestrained climate change, such perspectives are

relevant for anyone in a position of inluence. Italy

is well placed to proit from stability in Libya and

sustainable development in the region, but remains an

observer. Whilst others take the green energy ield.

National governments worldwide, regional institu-

tions and private sector businesses are accelerating ac-

tion to tackle the existential threat of climate change

and ensure the protection of the ecosphere. A new

inancial and legal system for the post-fossil economy

is emerging to regulate international trade and markets,

while ensuring the creation of sustainable jobs and in-

dustries. he political will to act rests on solid economic

foundations. Since 2010, the price of solar energy has

dropped 82% for photovoltaic solar and 49% for Con-

centrated Solar Power (CSP). Wind and solar power are

today the least-expensive options for bulk electricity

for two-thirds of the global population, 71% of global

GDP, and 85% of global power generation.

Brussels, London, Washington and Beijing are main-

streaming climate neutrality in policies and international

agreements. Such progress may serve as a blueprint for

WTO reform, accelerate the energy transition and help

to shift more rapidly towards a circular eco-economy. he

Italian G20 set up a working group on green inance. Eu-

rope has elaborated a major green recovery plan, of which

1 Ashraf Khalil, Zakariya Rajab, and Ali Asheibi, “Modeling, simulation, analysis and control of stand-alone PV system”, 2016/02/11

the core element is the European Green Deal. To achieve

its climate neutrality goal by 2050, Europe will need di-

rect electriication, sector coupling, and green hydrogen.

But the energy transition is linked to energy geo-

politics. Europe’s periphery has several politically un-

stable energy providers whose social, economic, and

political stability depends on being part of Europe’s

energy structure.

Forward-looking policies will have to provide vi-

able economic alternatives to the region’s oil-depen-

dent countries to avoid new wars, poverty, and mass

migration.

Fast-tracked decarbonisation means that our men-

tal map of Mediterranean geopolitics will be reframed

and reconceptualised.

Libya is Africa’s largest oil ield and a crossroads

for the interests of European energy companies. Until

now, oil, as well as gas, is the bloodline of the Libyan

economy. But Libya can be a “solar mine” for Italy and

Europe.

he country covers an area of 1,750,000 Km2, most

of which is desert, where the average irradiation is

around 5.7 (KWh/m2) and the sun shines for about

3000/3500 hours per year1. hrough large-scale con-

struction of photovoltaic and concentrated solar power

plants, Libya could become an exporter of clean elec-

tricity, powering the European grid.  

he large investment in the infrastructures needed to

replace fossil exports would boost the Libyan economy

and improve the lives of Libyans, creating development

opportunities that do not depend on the control of oil

and gas ields.

he EU Green Deal could trigger peace and clean development in the Mediterranean

Arvea MarieniBrainscapital Srl Società Beneit partner and board member

and Director of the Energy Transition Programme of Strasbourg Policy Centre

51

he aim of this article is to ofer a glimpse into vi-

able economic solutions for the decarbonisation of the

Libyan economy, showing how a “Solar Marshall Plan”

can contribute to peace.

A roadmap for joint sustainable development in the

“enlarged (Euro)Mediterranean” region would solve

the problems of clean energy supply on which the suc-

cess of the Green Deal depends. With international

public and private funding, Libya would invest in the

construction of the generation and transmission in-

frastructures needed to produce clean electricity and

green hydrogen from the desert. he proitability of

2 he Eight Country Interconnection Project (named EIJLLPST). his project involves interconnecting the electrical grids of Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Libya, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, and Turkey. It started as a ive-country interconnection project that included Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Syria, and Turkey, became a six-country project when Lebanon joined in, and later became an eight-country project when Libya and Palestine joined in. he Egypt-Libya, 220kV link, rated at 170MW, became operational in 2008. he same year also witnessed the operation of the Egypt-Jordan link, rated at 300MW, using 500kV on the Egyptian side and 400kV on the Jordanian side. During 2001, the Syrian and Jordanian networks were interconnected on 400kV using a line rated at 300MW. he Syrian grid was then connected to the Lebanese grid, also on 400kV, during 2009, and the Palestinian grid was later connected to both the Egyptian and Jordanian grids through 66 kV transmission lines having limited capacity. he already completed interconnection between the Syrian and Turkish grids has not been energized due to the political situation in the region.

such an investment is evidenced by similar projects

being carried out in neighbouring countries, starting

with Morocco, considered by the German government

in its green hydrogen plans.

Electricity interconnection plans already exist in the

area. he Egypt-Libya electricity transborder line2 is in

operation and will be enhanced. he EU has an intercon-

nection target of at least 10% by 2020 and 15% by 2030.

Ambitious solar projects – photovoltaic or CSP

(Concentrated Solar Power) – are being considered

by regional countries, the Arab League, international

inance institutions, starting with the World Bank.

he upcoming energy structure also implies diferent

national security perspectives. he current fossil-based

system is hierarchical, with the interests of producers,

importers, and energy transit countries potentially col-

liding. As renewables are more equally distributed, for-

eign energy dependency is reduced. Renewable energy

supply pushes for further interconnecting the higher

voltage systems across countries and continents.

he transition introduces at the same time signiicant

technical challenges and immense economic opportu-

nities. he grid becomes the largest interconnected

machine on Earth. Such networks require continuous

monitoring and control. Devices connecting the grid

to the internet have proven to be a very cost-efective

means to develop such capability.

In sum, deep decarbonisation of the power and

industrial sectors of Europe and beyond requires scal-

ing up renewable generation, while upgrading the grid

infrastructure to manage the increasing variability of

wind and solar sources. Europe is a testbed for advanced

52 arvea marieni

technologies and solutions. he EU grid has proven to

be resilient – despite the growing share of variable renew-

able power. his advanced know-how is transferrable and

could beneit the economies in the MENA region.

An old idea powered by new technologies

here is not such a thing as a new idea. In the 1990’s,

a German physicist, Gerhard Knies, launched an am-

bitious project to harness the power of renewables

and phase out oil. A small red square in the desert

became the iconic image associated with Desertec.

A fraction of the Earth’s surface would be enough

to power the whole world with clean energy.

Since then, innovation has made Desertec 3.0 a vi-

able development concept. Not only have renewables

matured, but UHV (Ultra High Voltage), supercritical

transmission lines can transport clean electricity over

thousands of kilometres with minimal losses, while

smart management ensures that electricity supply-de-

mand is balanced and luctuations are minimised.

he main obstacles remain politics and geopolitical con-

licts. Yet, in a world threatened by the collapse of natural

ecosystems and unrestrained climate change, such perspec-

tives are relevant for anyone in a position of inluence.

Italy is well placed to proit from stability in Libya

and sustainable development in the region, but remains

an observer whilst others are in the ield.

A long thought-through project to build an intercon-

nection between Sicily and Tunisia (200 km) is sitting

in a drawer while the UK-based company Xlinks is

planning to build 10.5 GW of wind and solar capac-

ity in Morocco and sell the generated power in the

UK through a 3,800 km submarine cable. he Saudi

ACWA Power Renewable Energy Holding, and the

Chinese Silk Road Fund are partners in the British lead

Xlinks project.

he vision of a green hydrogen economy is also re-

awakening the vision of desert power. Solar power could

indeed also dock on Europe’s Mediterranean shores in a

diferent form. he cheap, renewably generated electric-

ity could be used to produce green hydrogen on site.

Existing gas pipelines on the seabed could be used for

transport. Ammonia or power fuels could be shipped by

tanker to any place in the world.

Two minutes of sunlight are enough to power the

world for one year

he science behind the vision is solid. Every two min-

utes, the energy reaching the earth from the sun is

equivalent to the whole annual energy use of humanity.

According to the World Energy Consumption & Statis-

tics 2020, the total world energy usage – including coal,

oil, hydroelectric, nuclear and renewable - in 2015 was

13,000 Million Ton Oil Equivalent (13,000 MTOE),

which correspond to 17.3 Terawatts (TW) of continu-

ous power consumption during the year.

If we cover an area of the Earth 335 kilometers by 335

kilometers with solar panels, even with the moderate

arvea marieni 53

eiciencies achieved today, it will provide more than

17,4 TW power. An area of approximately 111.369

square kilometres is enough to power the world. 1.2%

of the Sahara desert is suicient to cover all of the en-

ergy needs of the world in solar energy at competitive

costs. here is no way coal, oil, wind, geothermal or

nuclear can compete with this in the longer term.

To harness renewable energy from the desert would

also solve the conundrum posed by conlicting land use,

limiting the negative impacts of large-scale solar plants

on ecosystems and biodiversity, even considering the

increase of temperature induced by solar farms.

he cost for such an investment would near ive

trillion dollars. his is a one-time investment not con-

sidering economy of scale or savings. his amount cor-

responds to less than 10% of the world’s one year GDP.

3 However, there would be still a niche application for nuclear power, which has the highest power density of any generation technologies and lasts longest without refueling. Where space is limited, as it is the case for submarines, or in space at a distance from the sun, nuclear power would be likely the sole viable solution.

4 Published in December 2019 by GEIDCO (Global Energy Interconnection Development and Organisztion) IIASA (International System for Applied System Analysis) and WMO (World Meteorological Organization), the report can be found under: http://pure.iiasa.ac.at/id/eprint/16239/

he economic rationale is strengthened by the upward

trend of carbon price in Europe (ETS) and upcoming

global carbon tax systems.

To put this amount into perspective, the cost of a 1

GWe (Gigawatt electric) nuclear plant is around three

billion dollars. Once again, the math is simple. he cost

to generate 17.3 TW nuclear power would be ifty-two

trillion dollars, which is ten times that of solar even if all

the other issues with safety and uranium supply would

be resolved3.

Recent studies suggest that the 1.5°C is technically

feasible at relatively low-cost for the overall economy.

he “Research Report on Global Energy Interconnec-

tion (GEI) for addressing Climate Change”4, compre-

hensively analyses the energy system and mitigation

technology of GEI in 2°C and 1.5°C scenarios. he

54 arvea marieni

results are remarkable. By 2050, the global

intercontinental power trading volume

will amount to 800TWh; the cross-region

power low will be 660GW; clean energy

will account for 86% in primary ener-

gy; the cumulative global CO2 emissions

will be kept under 510 billion tons;  and

the discharge of sulfur dioxide, nitric oxide

and PM2.5 will drop by 86%, 98% and

93% respectively.

he reports show that achieving the

2°C target implies globally aggregated

GDP values ranging between 0.2% and

1.0% across electriication scenarios in

2050, relative to a current policy refer-

ence. he range highlights that strong

enabling conditions for electriication

can play a signiicant role in lowering the

macroeconomic costs of action. Most im-

portantly, these numbers do not account

for the costs of inaction. 

Fossil fuels are wasteful

In twenty to thirty years solar and wind (in similarly

favourable geographies) will replace all other sources.

here will still be need for liquid fuels. Likely, it will

be hydrogen produced by the electrolysis of water and

that powered by solar. Tankers and pipelines will haul

green hydrogen around the world.

It is often forgotten that fossil fuels are extremely in-

eicient. Due to losses in conversion, distribution and

use, the large majority of the energy produced burn-

ing fossil fuels is lost (waste heat from combustion).

Electricity, on the contrary, has an eiciency of almost

100%. In fact we don’t need to replace all the energy

currently consumed, but only the productive share.

he efects on the Libyan chessboard

he technologies to exploit Libya’s solar energy poten-

tial are today largely available at scale and economi-

cally viable.

In 2020, investment in the energy transition reached

an all-time high of $501 billion; sustainable debt an all-

time high issuance of $732 billion; clean energy capital

markets were at all-time highs.

An acceleration in terms of green inance and condi-

tionalities could result from the international conver-

gence which is taking shape on the road to COP26 and

the Italian G20.

he multiplier efect on the Libyan and European

economies would be signiicant, considering the large

investment in the production and transmission infra-

structure needed for the progressive replacement of oil

and gas exports. In addition to this, decentralised clean

energy supply can dramatically raise living standards

in remote areas, supporting circular practices in all sec-

tors, from agriculture to ensuring drinking water avail-

ability via desalinization, from households to industrial

manufacturing.

Peace in Libya also depends on the reconstruction of the

country’s state institutions and economic fabric. Politics

and diplomacy - in Tripoli, Brussels, and Rome – are

arvea marieni 55

acutely aware that the risk of stranded fossil assets is be-

coming substantial under any decarbonisation scenario,

even in the case of a moderate transition pace.

he limits of a fossil-based, centralised system

Political conlicts and years of civil war have put a

toll on the country’s infrastructure. he Libyan state-

owned utility GECOL (General Electricity Company

of Libya) is not able to guarantee widespread, continu-

ous, and reliable supply. Libya is hit by unscheduled

and scheduled power outages. Blackouts are common

in peak demand periods in summer when the request

for cooling is highest.

he centralisation of the power system, dependent

on oil and gas fuelled power plant, afect the coun-

try’s resilience. Its energy infrastructure, including

power plants and transmission lines, was damaged

and destroyed following the 2011 regime change.

he blockade of the oil reineries in 2013 has further

weakened the economy. Libya plans to enhance elec-

tricity import from neighbouring Egypt and Tunisia

and to rent power generators to avoid power outages

(Enerdata, 2015).

he building and installation of additional fos-

sil fuel power plants is not possible. hus, Libya is

uniquely placed to develop renewable energy produc-

tion and harness the power of its most ubiquitous and

cheap natural resource. he transition to a post-fossil

economy would be gradual, with renewables covering

at irst some of its load requirements. Local industrial

value chains, training and transfer of know-how would

beneit the local economy and create jobs.

he need for a system change, to ensure grid sta-

bility and supply security, was integrated in earlier

national policies.

Modest national objectives

In 2013, the Libyan Government launched the Renew-

able Energy Strategic 2013-2025 Plan, aiming to achieve

7% renewable energy contribution to the energy mix by

2020 and 10% by 2025. he realisation of this modest

objective has been hampered by political conlicts, lack

56 arvea marieni

arvea marieni 57

of a dedicated renewable energy funding and scarcity of

obligations to conclude long-term power purchase agree-

ments with renewable energy producers.

he EU could play a constructive role in the country

torn by a decade of war, while working to diversify its

energy sources. he German diplomacy is a trailblazer.

Two ideas converge: the establishment of national and

European Hydrogen Valleys, and the vision of green mol-

ecules imports from solar (and wind) rich countries.

More than a year ago, a new European geopolitical

consensus on Libya was forged in Berlin. Going beyond

the military stalemate between the internationally rec-

ognised government in Tripoli and the Benghazi-based

Haftar regime, in August 2020, Europe facilitated a new

political roadmap leading towards elections.

It’s now time to take a bolder step forward. Diplomacy

and soft power cannot do much without economic de-

velopment. International support will make or break the

chances for peace and state building.

he Libyans, for their part, begin to recognise the ad-

vantages of the transition. In 2020, the Prime Minister of

the Eastern Government Abdullah hinni laid the foun-

dations for the construction of a photovoltaic solar power

plant the in the town of Kufra in South-Eastern Libya. he

plant will have a 100 MWp capacity and will occupy an

area of 200 hectares. A Chinese EPC company has been

charged with the works.

he United Nations Development Programme

(UNDP) is also running renewable energy projects, such

as a solar-powered public lighting project in Benghazi

or the construction of photovoltaic mini-grids to supply

electricity to 15 hospitals in Sebha, Tripoli, Zintan, Ubari,

Benghazi and Rajban.

he End of the Fossil Era will be painful if you don’t

manage it

he fossil fuel era that long shaped the global power struc-

ture is coming to an end. States that rely on green tech-

nologies are gaining signiicant inluence and competitive

advantage. he European Union is leading the way.

Countries that do not fully commit to green technolo-

gies are falling behind in global competition. hose that

invest early in research, production, and distribution of

renewable export goods, on the other hand, have a good

chance of increasing their global inluence.

he extent to which individual countries beneit or

sufer from change depends on many factors. In coun-

tries such as Libya, Kuwait, Iraq, Saudi Arabia or the

Congo, the revenues from this account for about 40%

of the GDP. Speciically, 43% for Libya.

Importers of fossil fuels, instead, beneit in several

ways from the global energy transition. If more and

more countries produce renewable energies, this in-

creases, irstly, the security of supply. Secondly, import-

ers can lower their energy costs. According to a study by

the Lappeenranta University, the energy costs of the EU

countries could fall by up to 10% as soon as they mainly

purchase green electricity from neighbouring countries

and hardly any oil, gas, or coal from the world market.

he prerequisite for this would be – once again - an

EU-wide, intelligent power grid.

hirdly, countries that change open up new sources

of income. Renewable technology innovations spark

high-quality development. Billions in proits can be

made from the sale of green electricity, green power

plants or the necessary components and services. Coun-

tries like China, Japan and Germany are already earning

billions with corresponding value chains.

he global shift to an ever greener energy supply

has huge efects on the world economy and inter-

national politics. Whether the positive consequences

outweigh the negative depends primarily on how

competently the transition from the fossil to the re-

newable era is managed.

58 arvea marieni

Produced and printed bywww.larmadilloeditore.it

July 2021